


We Were Meant to Be Sparks of Light

by Linsky



Series: Wolfverse [5]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Angst, Dom/sub Undertones, First Time, Knotting, M/M, Pining, Soul Bond, The Jamie POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-08 15:20:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 41,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8850088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linsky/pseuds/Linsky
Summary: It’s Tyler’s smile that gets Jamie first.(Can be read as a stand-alone)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Guys, I don’t have any kind of excuse for this. I just wrote the same story twice. It was going to be shorter this time around, but I got a little carried away. :D
> 
> This can be read as a stand-alone, but if you want to read the original POV, it’s [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7959376/chapters/18203653). The first three installments in the series are definitely not necessary for this, though they do give a little more context on wolves in this world and in this version of the NHL.
> 
> Thanks to Kristie for all her enthusiasm and to Steffi for falling in love with Jamie. <3
> 
> ([Tumblr](http://linskywords.tumblr.com/)!)

It’s Tyler’s smile that gets Jamie first.

They’re at the All-Star Game. Jamie’s still not sure what he’s doing here, in this crowd of NHL superstars. He’s nowhere in the same league—never mind the pun—as the guys around him: guys who’ve won their teams Stanley Cups, guys who were drafted first or second or third overall, not way down in the deep hundreds. He keeps expecting someone to pull him aside and tell him they made a mistake.

But no one’s done that yet, so he’s here at the pre-draft mixer, drinking a free beer and trying to look like he fits in. And then he looks up across the room and—

Jamie’s seen enough pictures of Tyler Seguin to just barely recognize him. But he’s never seen him in real life, in motion. He’s never seen him turn toward someone and _smile_ at them the way he’s doing now.

Speaking of leagues. Ones that are not Jamie’s.

It would be pretty stupid to stare at that smile even if Jamie weren’t at an NHL event. He’s not exactly in the closet, but he knows better than to hit on other players, especially ones he’s just met. And he knows better than to hit on guys who look like Tyler, period. But he can’t help watching as Tyler makes his way across the room.

His smile is so dynamic. His eyes crinkle up anew every time he turns it on someone. Jamie imagines that smile aimed at him, takes a gulp of beer to cover the swoop in his stomach.

Tyler just…he looks like he has so much happiness in him. Like he lets it spill over all the people around him.

Maybe it’s because Jamie’s so distracted by watching Tyler’s smile that it doesn’t occur to him how close Tyler is getting. Or maybe it’s because Jamie expects to be invisible to him. Either way, he doesn’t quite put it together until Tyler’s practically in front of him, close enough that Jamie has to drop his eyes or be incredibly obvious about checking out a fellow player. It’s a shame, because Tyler’s smile looks even better closer up, and Jamie would like to keep checking it out but probably won’t get a chance—except, no, he will, because Tyler’s actually turning towards him, beaming at him like they’re old friends or something.

Jamie just barely has time to put his face together into something friendly-looking and put his hand up to shake Tyler’s, taking a fortifying breath as he does so and _oh._

Suddenly the way Tyler looks is not the main problem anymore.

Jamie went through a phase when he was younger where he thought he’d end up with an omega. It’s a thing most alphas go through, or at least most male alphas, when they’re young and dumb and the idea of an omega equals SEX. Someone biologically designed to take your cock—it’s the kind of idea that really sticks in a thirteen-year-old’s mind. Jamie spent many sweaty nights working his hand under the sheet and imagining some needy omega spread out beneath him, wet and begging to be taken.

Then he got a little older and started dating for real and grew out of that. It probably had something to do with dating a beta in high school—he was head over heels for her, even if it only lasted a few months, and when they finally had sex it turned out to matter more who he was doing it with than what kind of wolf they were. When he did end up dating an omega for the first time a couple of years later, he liked her fine, but not more than the betas or non-wolves he’d dated. So the omega thing hasn’t been uppermost in his mind for the last five or ten years.

Then Tyler Seguin shakes his hand and Jamie breathes in and he might as well be thirteen again.

It’s not just that Tyler smells like an omega. Jamie’s smelled lots of omegas. He hasn’t dated a ton of them, but there’s a big wolf population in Victoria, and his family wasn’t exactly isolated. Jamie’s familiar with the general omega scent. This, though—fuck, it just hits him low in the gut and makes his knees wobble and he’s never smelled anything so amazing in his life.

He probably lets some of that show on his face. Hell, he’s not sure how he wouldn’t be letting it show on his face—it’s possible his face will never be the same again. In any case, Tyler must notice, because he pulls away a little and his scent gets nervous. Jamie can smell it under the layers that are making his head spin.

All Tyler says, though, is, “Hey, so you guys are doing a great job in Dallas,” and Jamie’s smile is half nerves, half relief.

“Yeah?” he says, and no, fuck, he can’t be awkward and shy right now. He—he has to say something to make Tyler want to stick around. Has to be, like, articulate or interesting but he can’t think of anything to say at all.

At least Tyler’s still grinning at him. “No, totally!” he says. “Like, you’ll probably be contenders soon, you know?”

“I don’t know,” Jamie says, and he can feel himself ducking his head like a moron. Fuck, he’s being so boring. Tyler must think he’s the lamest person here.

Except—Tyler’s scent changes. Just a little: it goes warmer and riper around the edges. Like—like he’s _turned on._

Jamie’s eyes flick up to his. He can’t help the way his own breathing picks up a little. If he thought Tyler smelled good before—now there are little hints of spice in his scent, like cinnamon and sugar. Jamie wants to get his nose closer and breathe it all in. It’s ludicrous to think that Tyler might be interested—Jamie’s laughing at himself just for thinking it—but scents don’t lie, and maybe if Jamie takes a step toward him—

Tyler startles a little bit, and his scent dives down into metallic fear. “Uh, I’ve gotta,” he says, or something like that, and then he’s gone, beelining away and lost in the crowd.

Jamie leans against the bar and breathes.

That was—that was dumb. He shouldn’t have even thought about getting into Tyler’s space so soon. He bites his lip and knows he’s going to be yelling at himself for that one for a while. Right now, though, his nose is still full of Tyler’s scent, and—and Tyler talked to him. Sought him out. Told him they were playing well in Dallas.

Every time he blinks, the back of his eyelids show Tyler’s smile.

Jamie finishes his beer and goes to find Kaner.

Kaner is, naturally, dancing with the guys who are too cool for Jamie. Jamie wouldn’t be cool enough for Kaner, either—isn’t, really—but the wolf thing is enough of a bond in the NHL that he doesn’t feel too weird sidling up to him. “Hey,” Jamie says, while Kaner does some kind of shimmy that looks…maybe less than advisable. “Hey, did we know that Tyler Seguin was a wolf?”

Kaner stops shimmying, and his eyes go wide. “What the fuck?” he says.

“Um, is that a no?” Jamie says.

Kaner grabs Jamie’s wrist and tugs him out of the bar area.

“What a fucking bomb to drop,” Kaner says when they’re away from the crowd. He’s alternating between staring at Jamie and darting his eyes at the crowd, like it’s about to part to reveal Tyler. “I would ask if you’re sure, but…”

Jamie shrugs. There’s not really any way to doubt a wolf’s scent. “He’s an omega,” he says, because that seems like important information.

Kaner rolls his eyes. “Fuck, Kesler’s going to be insufferable about this.”

Yeah. That seems about right.

“His scent must be really weak, though, right?” Kaner says. “I mean, for none of us to notice. Hell, I was in the lobby with him today, didn’t pick up on a thing.”

“I don’t know,” Jamie says. He doesn’t want to say—well, it’s pretty well-established that alphas can smell omegas better than anyone else can. Evolution or whatever. But he’s smelled his fair share of omegas, and if Tyler’s scent is weak, then the rest of their scents were practically nonexistent.

“I can’t believe he didn’t tell anyone,” Kaner says, and then, when Jamie looks at him, “Oh, shut up, world’s biggest hypocrite, I know. Do you want to invite him to the wolf chat, or should I?”

Jamie wants to, obviously. His stomach does a little flip at the idea of having any pretext at all to talk to Tyler. But he knows it would be a bad idea. “Probably better from you,” he says. “Less pressure, you know?”

“Like you would ever pressure anyone,” Kaner says with a snort, but it’s not totally true. It’s one of the things about being an alpha: sometimes you can have all the good intentions in the world, and nothing you do can cancel out the way other wolves read your presence as power. Your body as danger.

“No, but, I mean, you’re right,” Kaner says. “I’ll talk to him tomorrow.” He slaps Jamie on the shoulder. “Thanks for the heads up, man. Enjoy the party, yeah?”

There are a bunch of other things Jamie wants to say. Things like _Be nice to him_ and _Make sure he knows he’s welcome_ and _Wait, maybe I should be the one to talk to him; let me—_ But he doesn’t say any of that. It would be embarrassing and obvious and he barely even knows Tyler Seguin, anyway.

***

He wants to know him, though.

The thing is, Jamie can’t just go up to him. And not because he’s shy—although, yes, as Jordie has pointed out a million times, maybe he is a little bit shy. But this isn’t about that. This is about Jamie being an alpha and Tyler being an omega and Jamie not being a jerk.

He remembers the first time he knew it was a thing, back when he was a little kid. His family was at a wolf gathering and one of the older kids tried to take his stuff animal. Jamie pushed the guy down, and the next thing he knew his mom had a grip on his upper arm and was pulling him off the field.

Jamie’s mom didn’t get mad at him all that often. She didn’t need to: she was the alpha of their family pack, and Jamie listened to her automatically. But she was mad now. “You never do that again,” she said, crouching down to his level. “Never, Jamie, you hear me?”

Jamie tightened his arms around his stuffed animal. “But he tried to take Wolfy.”

“It doesn’t matter,” his mom said. “Whatever he did. You never lay your hands on an omega like that.”

Jamie didn’t really get it at the time. The kid was bigger than him, after all. But as he got older and started to see how other wolves reacted him, he got it a lot more: the way they would look to him for a decision in a conversation, even if he wasn’t the oldest one there or the most outspoken. The way they often said yes when he asked them for things, where his school friends would have just laughed. The way a new wolf, one he was meeting for the first time, might flinch away if he got too close or moved too suddenly. Betas, yeah, but mostly omegas.

It was usually okay, after they got to know Jamie. But he still had to learn things: how to leave an omega’s options open for them so that any decision was really theirs. How to suggest something he wanted so that they would know he wanted it without making it seem like an order. How to let them meet him halfway at everything—at friendship, at dating, at sex.

Hockey was different. In hockey, he was allowed to push people whenever the coach said it was okay. It was one of the reasons he liked it so much as a kid: that he didn’t have to feel too big, too strong, too dangerous. His strength was a benefit, not a liability. But dating—

The first time Jamie went out with an omega, he sweated through his shirt before they even got to the restaurant. He was so afraid he was going to make a move that would put her off and that he wouldn’t be able to tell. He ended up paying for dinner without thinking and then apologizing for like five minutes while she got a stitch in her side from laughing too hard.

He’s better at things like that now. He knows that it’s usually okay to take the check at the end of a date, that most omegas will like that, and if one doesn’t, he knows how to tell. He knows how to pick up on the tiny signs of discomfort that mean he’s coming on too strong. He knows how to stand back and let an omega come to him.

It’s kind of torturous to do so when he can smell Tyler moving around the room and catch glimpses of him talking to other people. Jamie tries not to look, but Tyler’s face is hard to look away from, and now that he’s caught Tyler’s scent once it’s like he can’t stop smelling it. But he gets another beer to keep his hands busy and sits back and tries to tell himself he’s not waiting. He’s at the NHL All-Star Game; that’s more than enough, whether or not Tyler comes to him.

Tyler does.

It’s dumb how strongly Jamie reacts, because he’s had maybe thirty seconds of conversation with Tyler, total, ever. All he knows is how he looks and how he smells. But it feels like all of his skin sparks to life when Tyler gets up and comes across the room toward him.

Tyler actually slides into the booth next to him. It’s such a blatant move—there’s a whole opposite bench Tyler could have taken—that Jamie has to bite his lip to keep from leaning in to touch him.

“Guess they’re saving the best for last, huh?” Tyler says, and Jamie isn’t sure what he means until—oh. Right. The draft. Jamie had forgotten that that was something he should care about. So maybe he wasn’t doing such a good job of getting his attention off of Tyler after all.

He breathes in again, and he notices that Tyler doesn’t smell quite like he did before. He smells…he smells _sad._

Jamie’s never really had that level of clarity with other people’s scents. Even Jordie, who he knows so well—Jamie can get some general stuff, like food he’s eaten recently and places he’s been, but not moods, not this strongly. He feels like he must be making it up, but no, he keeps returning to the same conclusion: Tyler smells sad.

It makes Jamie want to wrap his arms around him and snuggle him close and then maybe go beat up the people who are making him feel like this. Tyler is—Tyler is so good. Obviously. He should be chosen first.

Jamie babbles something to that effect. It’s not very articulate, and maybe Jamie doesn’t get his point across, because the sour note in Tyler’s scent grows.

“I guess they don’t need me,” Tyler says. “Enough centers, maybe.”

Fuck. How could anyone let Tyler smell like that? How could anyone want it? Jamie knows he’s being irrational, because non-wolves can’t smell Tyler’s mood at all, but—but—

For a second he thinks Tyler’s going to do it: Tyler sways towards him a little, and Jamie thinks he’s going to lean on Jamie’s shoulder. A bubble of heat swells in Jamie’s gut and he can’t even believe this is happening right now. He knows he’s not thinking clearly, not at all, but all that’s in his head are Tyler’s sad eyes and the sweet curve of his lips and the way his waist would probably feel if Jamie put his arm around it and—

Tyler sways away again, puts on a bright smile. Jamie can immediately see how fake it is. “Hey, the car would be cool, though, right?”

“Sure,” Jamie says. Tyler’s looking straight at him, and Jamie smiles a little to show him that it’s okay. That Jamie won’t reach out, that Jamie will give him space and time and choice, but if Tyler wants to get closer, Jamie is so very, very in favor.

Tyler keeps looking at him. The fake smile fades, and it’s just Tyler’s face: honest and open and so, so beautiful and Jamie’s breathing a little hard now. Imagining his lips pressed against that cheek. Imagining—

Tyler’s name blares out over the loudspeaker. Tyler jerks back. A moment later, his scent blooms with pride, with relief, and Jamie can’t help but smile, even while he’s wishing on some stupid level that Tyler wouldn’t go away.

“Go, get out there,” Jamie says, “you deserve it,” and—and he shouldn’t touch Tyler, not when Tyler hasn’t made it clear he wants it, but it’s hockey. The lines are a little blurrier than in the outside world. And Jamie just can’t let him go without anything. He taps Tyler on the arm, just a light brush of fingers.

Jamie’s whole body tingles instantly. Tyler startles a bit, and Jamie thinks he might have felt it too: the buzz like a circuit closing. The way their bodies ring together.

Shit, he thinks, as he watches Tyler stumble towards the entrance to the stage. He is so, so fucked.

***

Jamie floats through the rest of the night and the next morning. He doesn’t even care that he was drafted second-to-last. He doesn’t care that Tyler probably isn’t even thinking about their encounter last night. Just the fact of Tyler’s existence is making his head buzz.

It’s like waking up on what you thought was a regular day and finding out it’s Christmas morning. Jamie knows Tyler isn’t his to have, but just…knowing that he’s real. That he came up to talk to Jamie. That maybe, maybe, just maybe, he also felt something between them.

It’s enough to make Jamie giddy during the skills competition the next day. He’s competing in shot accuracy, and maybe he should be nervous—up against players who have him so far outclassed—but all he can feel is the glow beneath his skin that comes from the idea of Tyler watching him. Jamie’s probably imagining it, but it’s almost like he can feel Tyler’s eyes on him as he shoots, and the pucks hit the discs, thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack, just like he meant them to.

There are cheers, and Jamie’s grinning like crazy. Okay, maybe not so outclassed.

He’s still grinning when he comes off the ice and Kaner sidles up next to him. “He doesn’t want to join,” Kaner says.

“Hm? What?” Jamie says. He’s distracted by trying to see if he can find Tyler in the crowd of players. He’s not going to do anything crazy, but every pulse point in his body is beating with the desire to go over to Tyler and receive a congratulatory grin. He doesn’t even know that Tyler was watching, but he’s flying high on victory and all he can think is that he wants Tyler’s reaction. Just a grin. Just…

“Tyler,” Kaner says, and for a second Jamie thinks Kaner somehow read his mind, but then he realizes Kaner’s answering his question. “He doesn’t want to join the wolf chat.”

Jamie looks at him dumbly for a minute. “Wait, what?”

Kaner shrugs. “I just told him about it. He said—I don’t know, he seemed kind of freaked out.”

Jamie furrows his brow. It’s not like—well, obviously no one’s required to be on the wolf chat. But it had never occurred to him that someone might not want to, after they knew about it. Sure, it’s kind of annoying sometimes, but it’s community. The closest thing they have to one, anyway, in the NHL.

“I don’t think he’s out,” Kaner says, and—oh.

Not just not out to the public. Not out, the way Kaner was not out for the first couple years of his career. Not out at all.

“Oh,” he says, brain still feeling slow. Then, “Fuck, I shouldn’t have told you about him, should I?”

Kaner laughs. “Probably not, but it’s not like I wouldn’t have noticed. Eventually.”

“Right,” Jamie says, but his gut is still twisting with guilt.

“Anyway, the point is,” Kaner says, and his gaze is suddenly uncomfortably pointed, “you might want to give him some time, okay?”

Jamie feels his face flush. Fuck; he hasn’t been that obvious, has he? Yeah, okay, he probably has. The smell thing works in reverse, too: omegas smell alphas as well as alphas smell omegas, and Kaner can probably smell the way warmth blooms in Jamie’s gut every time Tyler’s name is mentioned.

“Yeah, of course,” he says, trying to pretend he isn’t humiliated half to death just by having this conversation.

He wasn’t going to rush into anything anyway. He’s not an idiot. Chances are Tyler wouldn’t want to start anything with him even if they weren’t thousands of miles apart for most of the year. Smell isn’t everything. And if Tyler’s afraid of being out…well, Jamie would be the wrong person to be with. There are a lot of reasons to hang back and see what Tyler does, and way fewer reasons to hope.

***

What Tyler does is avoid him.

Not entirely. They’re playing on the same temporary team; sometimes they even end up on shifts together, and that makes Jamie’s pulse jump in unjustifiable ways. But off the ice, when the team is training or talking to media or hanging out, Tyler turns away.

It’s nothing very obvious. If Jamie were a casual observer, he probably wouldn’t notice. But he’s anything but casual in his observations, and the way Tyler slips away every time Jamie approaches is too consistent to be anything but deliberate.

So, okay. Jamie’s been into people who weren’t into him before. At least it’s clear this early on, before he had a chance get really invested; and he won’t have to see Tyler on a regular basis after this. He can put it out of his head.

It would be easier without running into Tyler in the hallway of the hotel on their last night, when Tyler’s drunk and pliable and smells absolutely amazing.

Tyler stumbles into him, and Jamie puts his hands out to catch him automatically. He’s not sure if Tyler’s off balance from running into him or just that drunk, but either way, he sags heavily into Jamie’s hands. “Jamie! Hi, Jamie,” he says, and the warmth in his voice is so different from the avoidance of the last few days.

He’s drunk, Jamie reminds himself. Just to reinforce it, he says it out loud: “You’re drunk.”

“Yup!” Tyler’s looking up at him, all wide eyes and openness, leaning against Jamie’s chest. It’s doing all sorts of things to Jamie’s insides. Quivery things. “You’re not. Drunk. Are you?”

Fuck, he’s adorable. This is not helpful. Jamie tries not to smile, but he can’t quite help it. “No.” When Tyler just keeps blinking up at him—long eyelashes, pretty eyes—Jamie says, “Still on meds for the appendix thing.”

“Ohhh. Oh right.” Somehow, Tyler goes even heavier against him at that, his neck more arched. He’s practically presenting for Jamie, and Jamie has to swallow and remind himself that Tyler’s not really with it enough to mean any of this. Jamie’s dick doesn’t quite believe it, though, and it’s going to be very problematic in a minute or two.

“Um, are you okay to stand?” he asks Tyler.

“Yeah,” Tyler says, and maybe it should be a relief when he drops his eyes and his chin a little bit. But it’s not, because now he’s staring at Jamie’s neck.

Jamie feels self-conscious when he swallows again, but he can’t help it. His mouth is watering at the look in Tyler’s eyes. At the spike in his scent, rich heady arousal.

It’s so much better than anyone’s arousal has ever smelled to Jamie before. He blinks and tries to clear his head, and then he thinks—maybe he doesn’t have to clear it. Things like this happen at the All-Star Game, right? And Tyler could hardly be asking for it any more clearly. Maybe Jamie could just tighten his arms and lower his mouth to Tyler’s cheekbone and—

He knows he probably shouldn’t, but he slides his hands a little farther down Tyler’s back. “Do you, um,” he says, barely able to get the words out, but evidently it’s enough because Tyler pulls back right away.

“Sorry. Sorry,” Tyler says, as if he’s the one who has anything to be sorry about. Jamie’s insides curdle up: he read that wrong. Really wrong. Fuck, he just came on to a drunk omega. What the fuck was he thinking?

“Hey, no, you’re drunk,” he says, and then immediately winces, because that makes it sound like Tyler was doing something wrong. Like he was leading Jamie on or whatever.

Jamie should probably leave right now before he does any more damage—except that Tyler’s still listing to one side, like he can’t hold himself up anymore now that Jamie’s let go. Jamie puts a hand on his arm, light enough that Tyler could pull away if he wanted to. “Let me—” he starts to say, then swallows that down, because Tyler doesn’t have to let him do anything. “Which room is yours?” he says instead.

Tyler slumps against him right away. It pulls painfully on the part of Jamie that wants to make this something more. But he already knows Tyler’s response to that. Maybe this is just how Tyler is: a handsy drunk.

Tyler’s weight feels so good against his side. Jamie tries not to enjoy it too much as Tyler fumbles with his key card. Tyler’s getting further out of it by the second, barely able to hold up his own head anymore, and every sign of that makes Jamie feel worse and worse about what he started to suggest. He can’t even imagine what his mom would say about this.

They figure out which room is Tyler’s eventually, and Jamie puts his arm around Tyler’s shoulders to lead him there. Tyler leans on him as they walk, warm and clinging and—oh fuck, oh fuck, tipping his head back on Jamie’s shoulder to bare the long stretch of his neck.

The sight is like an electric shock to Jamie’s gut. He gasps, tries to cover it, but—if he thought Tyler was practically presenting before, it was nothing to this. This is the real thing. This is deliberate—or it would be, if Tyler were sober enough to know what he was doing.

Even knowing that Tyler doesn’t mean it, it makes Jamie want things. Things like Tyler’s body pressed between him and the wall. His mouth on Tyler’s throat. The way Tyler would tremble, the keening sounds he’d make as Jamie licked that creamy skin, as he bit…

Jamie forces his eyes away from Tyler’s display. “O-okay,” he says. “We’re, uh, here.”

They’re here. Now is when they should separate, but Tyler doesn’t move away: he just tips his chin back down a bit and looks into Jamie’s eyes. It makes Jamie feel like he’s lost contact with the ground, like he’s floating in outer space.

“Your eyes are really brown,” Tyler says, and Jamie wants to kiss him more than he’s wanted anything else in his entire life.

“You’re drunk,” he manages to say instead. The words come out half-strangled.

“Yeah,” Tyler says, and Jamie can’t help licking his lips a little. He watches Tyler’s eyes dart to the movement, keep staring at Jamie’s lips.

Tyler’s lips are soft and pink. Jamie can almost taste them. His body is crumbling into pieces held together by desire.

He could still press Tyler to the wall and kiss him. Tyler looks like he wants it—smells like he wants it. His scent is making Jamie dizzy. But he already made that mistake once tonight.

“So—you should go into your room,” he says.

Stepping back is one of the hardest things Jamie’s ever done. Especially with the way Tyler sways unsteadily, and the way his scent drops down, muted. Everything in Jamie’s body is screaming at him to go back to him, to support him, to never let him go.

“Good night, Tyler,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. It feels like a goodbye.

“Night,” Tyler says, shoulders slumped, making him look small. He goes into his room.

Jamie stands outside the door after it shuts. It’s taking everything he has not to knock—not to go after Tyler somehow. But that’s not his place. Tyler’s not his omega. Tyler’s his own person who can make his own decisions and has made it clear he doesn’t want anything like what Jamie wants tonight even if Jamie’s whole body is telling him otherwise.

Fuck, what is even happening?

***

He goes back to his room and tries to sleep. He’s been sleeping alone for the majority of his adult life, and it’s never felt weird before. But now it does: like he’s missing someone in his bed. He keeps thinking there’s something important he should be doing, someone he should be looking out for, and it takes him a minute every time to realize he’s thinking about Tyler.

Tyler, who’s not his to take care of.

It’s a long night.

***

Things feel better in the morning, though, and they feel almost normal when Jamie gets back to Dallas. The thing with Tyler was just a weird All-Star Game encounter. It doesn’t need to carry over into the rest of his life.

Jordie’s been bugging him about dating recently. He and Jessica are getting serious, and apparently that means Jamie needs someone, too. Jamie agrees, in theory. He’d like someone to date. He’s had a profile on ClawCupid for a while now—not because he necessarily needs to end up with a wolf, but because it would be easier, and because non-wolves tend to be a little weird about dating someone who occasionally gets furry and can smell too much about them. He’s found a handful of people he’s liked and dated one of them for a few months last fall. But after a while neither of them was feeling it, so they ended things before Christmas. He’s been hoping he can find someone new in the new year, start something up again.

The problem is, he can’t seem to find anyone he likes enough for even a second date.

Jordie calls him on it after the fourth person he lets down gently via text the next day. “What gives?” Jordie asks, after he wanders in while Jamie’s trying to craft the perfect wording to express _There’s nothing wrong with you but I never want to see you again, thanks._ “You usually give people more of a chance than this.”

Jamie makes a face. He usually does. He doesn’t think it’s fair to judge someone after a single date, unless they do something really horrible like yell at the waiter or imply that hockey’s a waste of time. None of these people did anything like that. There wasn’t anything wrong with them at all. “I don’t know,” he says. “I just—it’s dumb.”

“You realize that only makes me want to hear it more,” Jordie says.

Jamie furrows his nose further. He doesn’t really want to say it, but: “None of them _smell_ right,” he admits.

Jordie’s eyebrows go up. “Wow,” he says. “Didn’t know you were one of those guys.”

“I’m not!” Jamie says quickly. He hates those people: the ones who think everything has to be about instinct, that they should all go back to living in the forest and mating with whoever catches their nose at a given moment. “It’s not, like, a deliberate thing. I just…I keep smelling them, and I want to get farther away from them.” Except he can’t, because they’re at dinner, and he still has to sit through another hour and a half and there’s only so far he can move his chair back from the table before he can’t reach his silverware anymore.

“Did something change?” Jordie asks. “I don’t remember you complaining about this before.”

“No,” Jamie says. He really hopes his ears aren’t going red. He refuses to believe this is because of a stupid five-minute encounter at All-Star weekend. “Maybe it’s an age thing? Like, my body telling me it’s time to stop messing around and settle down with someone?”

“That would go better if you saw them for more than one date,” Jordie says, and Jamie has to agree.

He cools it on the dating thing for a bit after that—they’re making an end-of-season playoff push anyway (without success), and he doesn’t have much time until the off-season. He does end up dating a beta named Molly when he’s back in Victoria that summer—she doesn’t smell particularly amazing, but he’s not averse to her scent, either, and she’s a lot of fun. She plays college lacrosse and isn’t intimidated by his size or his training schedule. They see each other for about a month before they both decide they’re better off as friends, but apparently that’s enough to convince Jordie that Jamie isn’t broken or anything.

Then there’s the lockout, which is obviously not how he wants to start the next year of hockey. Jamie knows he’s lucky, in that he gets to go to Germany and play, but it’s not the kind of hockey he wants. And…he keeps hearing Tyler’s name.

It makes sense: they’re two of a small handful of NHL players playing in Europe this summer, and they’re playing in neighboring countries. Of course they’d go together in the eyes of the media. But it’s not helpful to keep hearing about the guy he was hoping to never have to think of again.

Everyone from home keeps asking him if he’s taking advantage of being in Europe to do some traveling. He’s not, not really: there’s no time for it when he has practice almost every day and multiple games a week. It’s not like he’s on vacation just because he’s on another continent. He does find himself going over to google maps sometimes, though—people are right that the countries are so much closer together over here. One night he maps out the route from Hamburg to Biel, and he thinks—

But no. That would be crazy. And he really doesn’t have the time.

The problem is, though, that he has too much time. Not enough free days, but more free hours than he’s used to in Dallas, where he has friends and family and team responsibilities and sponsorships. Here he’s just popping in, the international player who’s here for what happens on the ice and not much else. It means that he spends a lot of time alone in his apartment, watching game tape and YouTube clips to try to get to know his new teammates and opponents, and sometimes…

Okay, so maybe he spends a little bit of time watching clips of Tyler Seguin. It’s just because he’s bored. He does it on a guilty whim one night, but then—he can’t stop. Tyler’s so fast and so smooth with the puck, and Jamie wants to watch him deke around Montreal defensemen forever. At one point he gets a goal so pretty that Jamie’s hand is on his dick before he even thinks about it. He stops right away—that is just creepy, and he’s not going to be that guy—but he feels guilty about it anyway.

All in all, it’s a relief to go back to Dallas.

***

It’s easier to think about other things that spring. Jamie’s life is full of hockey again, and he starts seeing this girl named Autumn. Jordie laughs himself sick over her name, but he approves. She’s a beta, like Molly, and she has a great sense of humor and doesn’t mind that Jamie spends most of his energy on hockey.

The NHL wolf chat finds out about her a couple weeks in. Kesler’s the first one to say something— _hear u have a great piece of ass going in dallas, baby benn—_ and Jamie makes a face at his phone while the others chime in (more nicely, for the most part).

“I’m not even the only single guy on the chat,” he complains to Jordie after Sidney Crosby (Sidney Crosby, seriously—doesn’t the guy have more important things on his mind than Jamie’s love life?) asks him very politely if he’s thinking about bonding. “Like half these guys are just as single as I am. They probably have way more interesting love lives.”

“Yeah, but they don’t have a brother on the chat to talk up their conquests,” Jordie says, and Jamie just hates him sometimes.

***

Autumn lasts until the end of the season. There are no hard feelings when they break up, and Jamie’s looking forward to an unencumbered summer when he can do some serious training and do his part to realize the team’s potential.

When he gets the phone call in early July, he drops the phone.

“Hello? Jamie?” he can hear through the speaker as he gropes for it under the coffee table. “You there?”

“Yeah, Jim, sorry about that,” Jamie says when he finally gets the phone to his ear. He’s out of breath, even though he’s sitting still. “I’m sorry, did you say—”

“We’re getting Tyler Seguin,” Jim says again, and Jamie’s heart is beating so hard he wonders if Jim can hear it through the phone.

They want him to help get Tyler settled. He could be a big part of the future of Dallas, Jim says, and it’s important that he feel connected and welcomed. Jamie doesn’t have a problem with that.

“One other thing,” Jim says before he hangs up the phone. “They didn’t specifically tell us in any of the trade talks, but there have been some rumors going around about Seguin. Talk that he might be a wolf.”

“Okay,” Jamie says, noncommittal, and then, when Jim lets the silence stretch on, “You know I wouldn’t tell you either way.”

“It could help us make him feel at home on the team,” Jim says, voice still neutral.

Jamie’s pretty sure Jim’s a good guy. He doesn’t know him all that well yet, but a few days after Jim was hired he made a point of sitting down with Jamie and talking about the wolf thing. Told Jamie that he and Jordie were an important part of the team, and he wouldn’t put up with anyone making them feel otherwise. Hell, just the fact that they’re having this conversation after the trade and not before—it all makes Jamie want to trust him, but he hasn’t seen any of that in action yet. And even if he had…

“That’s not how it works,” Jamie says. It was one thing to tell Kaner, another wolf, and Jamie shouldn’t even have done that. “Sorry.”

“All right,” Jim says, and he sounds less resigned than Jamie might have thought he would. “I just need to know if this is going to be a problem for you and Jordie. In terms of…territory.”

It’s all Jamie can do not to snort. Non-wolves have such a limited idea of what possessiveness looks like in wolf communities. “No,” Jamie says, putting all his available confidence into the word. “No, it won’t be.”

And it won’t be, he’s pretty sure. It will probably be really nice, having another wolf around. He and Jordie know a few other wolves in Dallas, but they don’t have a lot of time to get to know the community, with all the travel they do. Wolves aren’t meant for such small groups; having even a third one around all the time will make things so much better.

And if Jamie’s stomach is fluttering a little at the idea of that third wolf being Tyler…well, no one has to know.

***

Jordie definitely knows.

“You’re being all weird,” he says when they’re at the airport, waiting for Tyler. The team offered to send someone, but Jamie didn’t feel right about that. The team isn’t exactly a pack, but if it were one, Jamie as the alpha would be the first person to welcome any new member. He doesn’t want Tyler to feel like he’s not good enough for his alpha.

Not that Jamie’s Tyler’s alpha. Not like that.

“Seriously, stop twitching,” Jordie says.

“I’m fine,” Jamie says, defensively enough that if Jordie wasn’t skeptical before, he definitely will be now. But Jamie can’t help it. His hands don’t want to stay still.

“You said you met him before,” Jordie says. “He wasn’t weird or anything, was he?”

“No,” Jamie says. Nothing weird. Nothing wrong with him at all. And then Jamie shuts down his inner hyperbolist.

“Oh hey, is that him?” Jordie says, and Jamie feels like a current is running all through his stomach and legs because oh fuck, it _is._

He’s heading over before he can give it thought and his face is smiling all by itself as he calls Tyler’s name. He knows he should just shake his hand—keep it low-key—but Tyler looks at him and his face just _brightens_ and the next thing Jamie knows he’s putting his arms around Tyler and pulling him close.

It’s good. It’s so good to hold him. Like it’s a relief, even though it shouldn’t be, because it’s not like Jamie’s been waiting for this or anything. Tyler goes soft against him, warm in his arms and kind of snuggling in, and wow, Jamie forgot how amazing he smelled. Or, it’s not that he forgot, it’s more like—his memory couldn’t possibly recreate it. Tyler’s natural scent is layered over with airplane and travel and a few things that are deeper and darker, sadness and rejection, and it’s still the best thing Jamie’s ever smelled. He wants to stand here and bury his nose in the soft hair behind Tyler’s ear and breathe him in forever.

Jordie clears his throat behind him. Jamie straightens up and pulls away and hopes that he’s not blushing.

There’s a little flush of red high on Tyler’s cheekbones, and his eyes are dazed and happy. His smell floats around Jamie’s head, and the stupid grin on Jamie’s face might just be permanent.


	2. Chapter 2

“So,” Jordie says later that night, when Tyler’s eaten dinner with them and gone back down to his sparsely furnished apartment.

That’s all he says—just that “so”—but Jamie feels himself going warm anyway. He squirms on the couch. “So what?”

“So you didn’t tell me he was an omega,” Jordie says.

Jamie fiddles with the blanket just to have something to do with his hands. “I figured you’d notice for yourself.”

“Oh, I noticed,” Jordie says, heavy with emphasis, and Jamie wonders if he can get away with putting the blanket over his head and not having to make eye contact anymore.

“I think he’ll be good,” Jamie says. “On the team. I think he’ll be good.”

“On the team, eh?” Jordie says, smirk reaching dangerous proportions, and that’s it. Jamie’s going to bed.

***

Tyler’s around a lot, those first few weeks he’s in town. It makes Jamie constantly feel like he’s just been hit over the head.

He’s pretty sure you’re supposed to get used to scents when you’re exposed to them a lot, but Tyler’s doesn’t lose any power for him. Jamie stands near him and breathes him in and feels like he’s getting drunk: drunk enough to do something stupid, like lean in and press kisses to Tyler’s dimple or the scruff of his beard. Run his hands over Tyler’s waist and feel the muscles that show so clearly through his t-shirts. Make Tyler relax and close his eyes and shudder with pleasure.

Jamie doesn’t let himself do any of those things. But he does let himself brush his hand over Tyler’s shoulder and lean too close and nudge him in the side. He lets himself look at Tyler while he’s giggling, doubled over, nose and eyes crinkling up because of something Jamie or Jordie said. He lets himself catalog Tyler’s moods: bright and bubbly with laughter; sleepy and needy and wanting to cuddle; hurt and withdrawn, when he’s thinking about Boston. He lets himself try to cheer Tyler up, and when he does, he lets himself smile and think, _Maybe._

Tyler smells turned on when Jamie leans close. He holds Jamie’s eyes when they share a joke. He presses into Jamie’s touch. None of it means anything, necessarily—Jamie still remembers the way Tyler pulled away in Ottawa, and he’d smelled turned on then, too—but it’s enough to make Jamie walk around in a daze of possibility.

He’s never felt like this about anyone. This kind of connection—Jamie didn’t know it could be so effortless. That it could just be there, right in front of his face, nothing to search for or strive for or question. Just easy and dazzling. 

Jordie thinks the whole thing is hilarious. He laughs for five solid minutes after the time Tyler shows up shirtless and Jamie can’t string together a sentence to save his life.

“I have never seen you this gone,” Jordie says through his tears of laughter.

“Shut up,” Jamie mumbles. He’s already humiliated himself once today. He should have guessed how Tyler would look without a shirt on, given how maybe times he’s seen him in muscle tees, but something about that expanse of golden skin. His brain was not designed to work under those conditions.

“I mean, I’m not saying he’s not there with you,” Jordie says. “Have you seen how much he fucking presents?”

Jamie has. Jamie has seen and…remembered. Tyler’s constantly tipping his neck back around Jamie. It’s often enough that it’s kind of shameless, and Jamie’s been toying with the theory that maybe Tyler doesn’t realize he’s doing it—that maybe it’s just what his body does and not anything he’s trying to communicate.

He tells this to Jordie, and Jordie snorts. “Believe what you want,” he says. “But just ask yourself: have you ever caught him doing it towards me?”

Now that he mentions it, Jamie has not. And that…that deserves some thinking about.

***

Jamie thinks about it. Extensively. That night.

***

So, okay, maybe there’s hope. It’s scary to even think that, because it’s only been three weeks and Jamie’s already not sure he’s ever wanted anything this much. He knows he’s never wanted any _one_ this much. Just the idea of Tyler curled up in his bed, sleepy-eyed and looking up at Jamie and talking softly…the way he’d maybe be ticklish, if Jamie touched him the wrong way, the way he would giggle and look at Jamie in outraged delight, and then Jamie would smooth the touch out and Tyler would relax with a soft sigh, the way he sometimes does when they’re cuddling on the couch and Jamie gets his fingers in Tyler’s hair. All that brightness under his hands…

It’s possible that Jamie is thinking about this a little too much.

He can’t push it, though. Not with an omega, not with this. But he can make it clear what he wants, he can give Tyler openings, and he can see if Tyler takes them.

Tyler always accepts his touches. Always. It’s the best feeling in the world to slide an arm around Tyler and feel him relax into it. Tyler accepts Jordie’s touches, too, but Jordie’s touches are different: pack touches, not mate touches. Or almost-mate touches. Jordie would never slide a hand along Tyler’s waist and let his palm rest hot on Tyler’s obliques, heart rate skyrocketing at the implications. Jamie does. And Tyler moves into it. Lets his eyes meet Jamie’s, open and pleased and everything Jamie wants in the world.

When Jamie invites him to go running with them at the full moon, he’s expecting the way Tyler’s eyes go bright. But not the way they dim a moment later, or the way Tyler says he has to think about it.

“Maybe he has different pack customs,” Jessica says when Jamie tells them what Tyler said. She’s in town, visiting Jordie. “I mean, it’s obvious he’s into you.”

It makes Jamie feel marginally better, hearing her say that. She’s only been here two days, and already she thinks—but that might be Jordie’s influence.

“I guess that’s possible,” Jamie says, though he doesn’t know what kind of pack customs those would be.

“Or maybe he’s just not ready to rush into anything,” Jordie says. “Look at how weak his scent is.”

Jordie’s said things like that a few times since Tyler got to Dallas—how weak Tyler’s scent is—the kind of thing Kaner said in Ottawa. Jamie’s never sure what he’s talking about. Sure, betas can’t smell omegas as well as alphas can, but Tyler’s scent is stronger than any omega Jamie’s ever smelled. Sometimes he thinks he can smell Tyler in his apartment four floors down. But he doesn’t want to have that debate again. “What does that have to do with being ready?”

“He didn’t want to join the wolf chat for a reason,” Jordie says. “Dating you—well, it would be kind of like coming out, right?”

Jamie hadn’t thought of it that way. “But it wouldn’t be,” he says. “I could be dating a non-wolf.”

“Still, it would get attention. And he’d still be coming out as dating men.” Jordie leans forward a little. “Look. He had a bad time in Boston, right? He just got here. We’re the only people he knows. You might just need to give him a little time.”

Time. Jamie nods. He can give him that.

“He’ll come around,” Jessica says with a smirk. “Let me tell you, I have never seen anyone show as much neck as he did to you during dinner. I thought he was going to get down on the ground and—”

Jamie throws a pillow at her.

***

Tyler doesn’t withdraw like Jamie was afraid he would after the moon run invitation. He still comes over to Jamie and Jordie’s apartment just about every day in the weeks leading up to training camp, whether they have something scheduled at the rink or not. He comes and eats their food and bounces around their kitchen and flops down next to them on the couch.

Jamie aches, having him this close. It’s a struggle not to touch him in ways he shouldn’t, especially when they’ve been working out and Tyler’s slick with sweat and smells amazing. Or when they’ve been cuddling on the couch and Tyler’s sleepy and warm and all Jamie wants to do is pull him into his lap and nuzzle the hell out of him. Or when he sees Tyler laughing, bright in the sunlight, teeth flashing white and head thrown back and every line of his body full of his happiness.

Sometimes Jamie loses the struggle. One night they’ve been hanging out in the living room, watching old game tape, the Stars of last year zooming around the ice. Tyler keeps saying things, little murmured exclamations about Jamie’s play, and he’s sitting so close, his arm pressed against Jamie’s as they share an iPad. It’s hard not to watch Tyler instead of the screen. At one point, Jamie gets a goal on the tape, and Tyler pumps his fist in the air and whoops, then grins wide and bumps his shoulder into Jamie’s, like he’s inviting him to share a joke, and it’s all Jamie can do not to lean in a few inches and—

Jamie walks Tyler to the door, when they’ve both started blinking sleepily at the tape and it’s time to call it a night. Jamie’s maybe left it later than he should have, because he hates the part of the evening when Tyler leaves and Jamie doesn’t get to see him again for eight or twelve hours. It’s pathetic, but, well, he’s come to terms with being pathetic when it comes to Tyler.

Tyler walks close to Jamie on the way to the door, a hand’s width away, and when he gets there he turns and looks up at Jamie and the way he looks—Jamie’s heart stops. Tyler’s eyes are open and unguarded and the line of his cheek is sweet and perfect and his mouth is a soft red thing and Jamie wants to touch him more than he wants to keep breathing.

He’s not supposed to. He doesn’t know what Tyler wants yet, and he’s not supposed to push. But he can feel his pulse in his fingertips and he’s raising his hand before he can think better of it. He touches his fingertips to Tyler’s cheek where the skin is smooth like velvet, and a jolt goes through Jamie’s whole body and Tyler’s mouth drops open and his eyes flutter shut. It takes everything Jamie has not to leave his hand on Tyler’s skin, to follow the line through the roughness of his stubble and along the curve of his neck and down…

He’s not going to push. But he turns away, head swimming with the scent of Tyler, warm and close and interested, and he thinks maybe next time. Maybe next time he can do more.

***

There is no next time, though, because Tyler gets sad after that.

It’s not like Tyler’s never been sad before. It’s obvious how much the trade hurt him. But he’s also been quick to cheer up: a joke or a cuddle will bring him out of it, usually. Jamie’s gotten used to how the scent of sadness means that Tyler will snuggle closer, will be quicker to lean in and rest his head on Jamie’s shoulder. He’s already gotten addicted to the way he can make that sadness lift.

But now Tyler smells sad and is pulling away. Jordie will tell a joke or Jamie will trail a hand over his shoulder, and the scent of sadness will just get deeper.

Jamie’s not sure when it started. He’s pretty sure Tyler was normal the night they watched game tape together, when Jamie touched his cheek. Maybe that scared Tyler off? But Tyler hadn’t smelled scared off. If anything, his scent had gotten sweeter, tilting a little further toward desire. But it must have been sometime around then, because in the week before training camp starts, Tyler’s in Jamie and Jordie’s apartment maybe half as much as usual.

“I must have done something,” Jamie says one night when Tyler’s left right after dinner, instead of staying for the movie Jamie and Jordie made it very clear they were going to watch. Jamie’s been going over and over his behavior in the last week, trying to find the moment it became too much for Tyler, but he can’t pinpoint a moment when Tyler pulled away. “Maybe I came on too strong.”

Jordie’s reading a magazine on the other couch. “You didn’t do anything.”

“Yeah, but.” Jamie hunches his shoulders up and down. “There must be a reason, right? He was so happy with us before. Maybe he’s just—getting sick of us or something? Maybe I shouldn’t be inviting him over so much. He might feel pressured.”

“It’s not because of you,” Jordie says.

“That’s what you have to say,” Jamie says miserably. His one job with Tyler was to make him feel comfortable in Dallas, and he failed. Maybe there’s a rock he can hide under until training camp starts.

“No, I mean, it wasn’t you,” Jordie says, and something in his tone makes Jamie look at him more closely.

Jordie’s not meeting Jamie’s eyes, but Jamie can see his face. It’s closed off. “Wait,” Jamie says slowly. “What do you mean, it wasn’t me? Did you do something? Or—Jessica? But she wouldn’t—”

“No, it wasn’t her,” Jordie says.

“Jordie,” Jamie says. His heart is thudding in his ears. “You have to tell me. Come on, please.”

Jordie looks down at his hands for a few beats, then over at Jamie. “Okay,” he says finally, putting the magazine down. “But you have to promise not to get mad, okay?”

“What did you do?” Jamie asks.

“It was at the lake,” Jordie says. “Right after we learned about his sense of smell.”

Jamie remembers that. Of course he does. He’s not sure he’s ever been so horrified in his life as he was when he learned that Tyler’s mom had damaged his sense of smell. A baby wolf, and she’d given him nasal spray? “Did you say something about it?”

“No, it was later. The two of us were sitting by the tables while you and Jess were at the water. And he just looked…I don’t know, he was watching you.” Jordie shrugs his shoulders a little. “And I thought—he can’t smell things the right way; maybe he’s been missing stuff. Maybe he doesn’t know what page you’re on.”

Jamie feels heat spread up his neck at the mention of it. He feels like the opposite is true: that he’s been too obvious, if anything. But Jordie has a point about the sense of smell. “Okay.”

“I figured he could use a helping hand.” Jordie winces. “So…I might have told him you were looking to get with someone like him. You know, with a wolf.”

“Jordie.” Jamie’s spine goes so straight he practically levitates off the couch cushions. “You did not say that. Oh my God.”

Jordie grimaces at him.

“You made it sound like—oh my God, you made me sound like some kind of—wolf slut!”

“I did not! I said it nicer than that!” Jordie puts his hands up. “I swear, I said you were looking for family and stuff.”

“Oh my God. Oh my God. That’s even worse.” Jamie’s heart is practically drowning out his scraping breaths. “You—that’s why he’s being so weird. You actually told him—”

“I didn’t say you wanted to date _him,_ ” Jordie says.

“That’s not exactly a hard code to crack!”

“Look, I—I just thought it would help,” Jordie says. “Let him know you’re really serious, here. Do you really think Tyler doesn’t want a family?”

A week ago, Jamie would have agreed in a heartbeat. Tyler craves pack like no one Jamie’s ever seen before. He slotted himself into Jamie’s and Jordie’s lives like he’d known them from birth. But then he started pulling away, and it was because…

It was because Jordie told him Jamie wanted to date him.

“Oh my God. He doesn’t want me,” Jamie whispers.

“We don’t know that that’s true,” Jordie says, but there isn’t really any other way to spin this.

Tyler doesn’t want him.

Jamie’s always known this was a possibility. From the first moment Tyler pulled out of his hold in that hallway in Ottawa—from before that, really—he’s known this might be one-sided. But now that it’s confirmed, he feels like he can barely breathe.

“Hey, stop it,” Jordie says. “We don’t know anything for sure. Maybe he’s just freaking out.”

“Yeah, because his teammate has a dumb crush on him,” Jamie says, his voice breaking on the word “crush.” Fuck, not just Tyler’s teammate—his _new_ teammate, the one who’s supposed to welcome him to this city, an alpha who, as far as Tyler knows, might not be happy to be denied what he wants. If Jamie were Tyler, he’d be freaking out, too.

“I have to fix it,” Jamie says. “I have to—fuck, tell him I don’t want him or something—”

“Okay, first of all, don’t start lying to him.” Jordie’s eye-roll is practically violent. “Just calm down, okay? He’s still hanging out with us, so we haven’t freaked him out that badly.”

“Right. Okay.” Jamie still feels the compulsion to fix it. It makes his fingers twitch, the desire to go down there and do something, make Tyler feel better, reassure his—

Not his. Tyler is not his omega.

“And we don’t really know anything,” Jordie says. “Maybe he just needs more time.”

More time. Sure. Or maybe Jamie’s just been coming on to someone who doesn’t want him and is too freaked out to say no. He bites his lip and breathes deep.

“For what it’s worth,” Jordie says, “I’m sorry I said anything. I just—I really thought it would help, you know?”

“Yeah. I get it,” Jamie says. “I’m not—I guess it’s for the best.” His breath and his hands both feel shaky. It’s better to know. So that he can stop.

“Sure,” Jordie says, more softly. He gets up and chucks Jamie lightly on the chin as he leaves the room. “Just try not to be too hard on yourself, okay?”

Jamie nods, doesn’t argue. Like there’s any chance of that.

***

Jamie’s going to give Tyler space. He’s not going to make him feel pressured or desired in any way that might be construed as a suggestion. He’s going to make it perfectly clear that Tyler doesn’t need to want Jamie back in order to be happy here.

The weird thing is, Tyler doesn’t seem to want that much space.

He still seems down a lot of the time. There’s a spark Jamie’s used to—the one that means Tyler is all there, is fully present and fizzing over—and it’s missing most of the time now. But there are other sides of Tyler that come out in its absence, and one of those sides is the one that curls up on a couch cushion next to Jamie and inches slowly closer over the course of fifteen minutes until finally his head creeps onto Jamie’s thigh and rests there, tentative, like Jamie’s about to throw him off any second.

It always catches Jamie’s breath, that show of need that’s obviously so hard for Tyler to perform. Jamie makes sure to slide his hand into Tyler’s hair right away, and the way Tyler relaxes feels like a reward. 

Jamie understands the need for alpha touch. He knows that it can manifest itself even if the omega in question doesn’t want that particular alpha. But that doesn’t stop him from treasuring the feel of Tyler’s scalp under his fingertips. From memorizing the weight of Tyler’s head on his thigh. From noticing every catch in Tyler’s breath and storing them for later, his chest warm with the knowledge that at least he can give Tyler this.

And then there’s training camp, which is…confusing.

Tyler’s still withdrawn, a lot of the time. It’s especially hard to take during camp, because there’s a huge part of Jamie that takes _Tyler is sad_ and wants desperately to wrap him up in his arms and take care of him until he feels better, and while he can do a little bit of that at home, he can’t do it in front of the team. Not when Tyler is so new and trying to establish himself. So Jamie grips tight to the edge of the bench and doesn’t do anything dumb.

Then they get onto the ice together, and everything’s different.

Jamie’s had some centers he’s played well with, but nothing like this. The chemistry between them—and it’s not just the plays. It’s after, too, when they’ve done something really well and Tyler will turn to him looking like he wants _praise_ and Jamie should hold himself back, really should, but they’re already crashing into each other and he’s yelling things in Tyler’s ear and Tyler only clings tighter. The hope that fills Jamie’s chest after moments like that doesn’t go away, even after he spends hours trying to talk himself down.

“I shouldn’t ask him, should I?” Jamie says to Jordie the day before the September full moon.

Jordie’s measuring out protein powder for a shake. “Ask who?” he says, distracted, and then he turns to Jamie with wide eyes. “Wait, _Tyler?_ ”

Jamie runs a hand along the counter. “I mean, I was just thinking,” he mumbles. “You said he needed time, right?”

“Yeah, but not, like, two weeks.” Jordie’s doesn’t seem to have noticed that he’s still spilling protein powder on the floor.

“I know.” Jamie’s cheeks are hot. “It’s just, he seems a lot better, you know? And camp’s been so good, and he really…” He trails off, because he doesn’t think he can explain the way Tyler looks at him sometimes. The way it makes it impossible not to hope.

“Okay, I know I said we didn’t know anything for sure,” Jordie says. “But I’m pretty sure asking him on a moon run right now would be the opposite of smart.”

“Yeah. You’re right,” Jamie says, and he doesn’t say the real reason he’s asking: how he just desperately wants Tyler there. Wants him around all the time, really, but especially at the full moon. Wants to run with him, wild and free, to feel the joy of the moonlight together.

Jordie can probably tell all that, anyway.

***

Jamie gets named captain after their second pre-season game. He had a hunch it was coming, but he didn’t know for sure, and when he gets handed the jersey with the C on it, he’s so happy he feels like he could float to the top of the arena.

Jordie gives him a hug when the announcement is over. “Knew you could do it,” he says, and bumps his forehead against Jamie’s chin—more wolfy affection than they’d normally show around the team, but the occasion merits it. Not the first wolf captain in the NHL, true, but the first one to be named after coming out. It’s—Jamie doesn’t even know what to do with everything he’s feeling.

Then he turns and sees Tyler.

Tyler’s looking at him, at the C on his chest, and his eyes have kind of glazed over. His scent has gone thick, clouding every breath Jamie takes, and he looks—he looks like he’s about to drop to his fucking _knees_.

God help him, but Jamie wants him to.

The next second he realizes how stupid that would be. Even if Tyler wanted to do that, in front of the entire team is not the right place. But his scent is fogging Jamie’s head, and the look in his eyes—

It’s almost a relief when Tyler just sidles up to him and bumps him in the side. Almost, but not quite.

“Congrats,” Tyler says, voice soft and eyes locked on Jamie’s. He has to look up a little to meet his eyes, so obviously his head is tilted back a little, but he probably doesn’t have to tilt it back that far, and the line of his throat—

Then Tyler goes past him, into the crowd, and Jamie can finally breathe again.

“Holy shit,” Jordie says softly behind him, and Jamie turns to see him looking at him with wide eyes. “That was…”

It’s nice to know Jamie wasn’t imagining things, even if it makes him squirm to know Jordie witnessed that. “Right?” he says weakly.

“Okay,” Jordie says. “I see where you were coming from, with the moon run thing.”

“There’s still nothing going on,” Jamie says.

“Maybe not.” Jordie’s mouth curls into a smirk. “But there will be.”

Jamie desperately, desperately wants to believe him.

***

Jamie kind of does believe him, is the thing. So Tyler’s skittish. So maybe there was some bad stuff in his past. All that means Jamie has to go extra slow, maybe, but it doesn’t change where they’re going. Jamie doesn’t know for sure where they’re going, but he gets a pretty strong idea from every smile Tyler shoots Jamie, every time he relaxes under Jamie’s touch. It’s enough to go on.

That what he thinks, anyway, until the night of their win against St. Louis.

Tyler’s so great after a win. Smile and bright and soft at the same time—full of energy, talking to everyone at the table, but leaning into Jamie’s side with every gesture, making his skin hum. Jamie watches him laugh with Cody and has one of those moments where he thinks, yes. This is all he wants. Give him this for the rest of his life, and he’ll die happy.

Then Tyler’s pulling on his sleeve. “Hey, Jamie,” he says. “What do you think about that woman at the bar?”

Jamie doesn’t know what he means, at first. Is there something wrong with her? Does Tyler want to ask her something? Then Cody chimes in, something about how hot she is, and Tyler slides out of the booth, and Jamie gets it.

He gets it like a two-by-four to the head. He watches in stunned amazement as Tyler goes up to the woman and starts talking to her. It would be obvious what Tyler was doing, even if Jamie didn’t know him so well—obvious from the cant of his neck, the wattage of his smile, the way he leans in towards her. The way he brushes his fingertips over her arm.

Then again, Jamie might have to reevaluate his whole understanding of Tyler’s flirting behavior, because it’s evident he doesn’t understand it at all.

“What,” Jordie says in Jamie’s ear, “the fuck.”

Jamie doesn’t look at him. Doesn’t look away from Tyler. Tyler’s flirting openly in Jamie’s line of sight, practically turned towards him; he must know Jamie’s watching. It’s obvious what the fuck.

Jordie’s hand lands on his shoulder. “I’m buying you a shot.”

***

The shots might have been a bad idea.

“Jordie,” Jamie says. He can hear his own voice slurring, but he can’t do anything to stop it. “Jordie, I don’t understand.”

Tyler’s still on the dance floor with the girl. Jordie made Jamie sit so he’d be facing away from them, but that means Jordie’s facing them, and Jamie knows he’s watching. Can tell from the way Jordie’s eyes are narrowed. “I know, dude,” Jordie says.

“I thought we were gonna,” Jamie mumbles. “Thought we were waiting.”

“I know.” Jordie winces at his words, and Jamie knows he’s being pathetic, but he can’t stop it. Not after the vodka shots he just had.

Not ever, really.

“He’s really pretty,” Jamie says, without really meaning to. “Not just his—like, when he looks at me. The way he—it just makes me feel good, you know?”

“Uh-huh.” Jordie slides a glass of water across to him. “Why don’t you drink that, okay?”

Jamie takes it. “Do you think maybe,” he says. He slides his hand along the water glass and gets lost in the weirdness of all the condensation. So much water. “Maybe they’re just dancing for fun, you know? Because he couldn’t with me. Maybe he still wants to be dancing with me.”

Jordie just looks at him. Then over his shoulder again, at the dance floor.

“’Re they still there?” Jamie asks, even though he knows they are.

“Um, actually—” Jordie makes a face. “Actually, it looks like they’re leaving.”

“What?” Jamie whips his head around. Tyler and the girl are headed for the exit, his hand on her back, and fuck, fuck. It’s wrong. It’s all wrong. “I have to go. I have to stop him.”

He starts to get up, but Jordie’s closes around his wrist. “Hold it. You can’t do that.”

That makes Jamie straighten up and swing back around to face Jordie. “What? But—”

“Dude.” Jordie gives him a level look. “You’re not his alpha.”

Jamie growls at him. He actually growls. He doesn’t mean to, but it’s instinctive: Jordie says what he says, and there’s a rumbling coming out of Jamie’s throat.

“Whoa.” Jordie steps back, puts his hands up. “Chill out. I’m not saying anything you didn’t know. Remember?”

Jamie feels the anger draining out of his body, and he’s humiliated by the look of shock on Jordie’s face. “Fuck. I’m so sorry.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “I can’t…Jordie. I just can’t…”

“I know, dude.” Jordie pats him on the shoulder. “I know. Let’s go home.”

***

Tyler comes into the locker room the next day smelling like her.

Jamie didn’t actually know what the girl smelled like. But Tyler comes in smelling like sex, and like someone who isn’t him, and Jamie spent the whole previous night telling himself that was what was happening, but he didn’t quite believe it until just now.

He can’t look at him. He knows it’s childish, but his whole body feels hollow and trembly, like if he looks at Tyler he might just collapse. He focuses on getting his gear on and doesn’t look.

Tyler tries to say something to him as they go onto the ice. Jamie’s not sure what it is; as soon as Tyler’s that close to him, speaking to him, it’s like a buzzing fills his head and he needs to get away. Needs to not be looking at him.

He can’t escape Tyler’s scent, though. He smells sad, even on the ice, and that’s—

Jamie didn’t force Tyler into anything here. Jamie didn’t make him go hook up with that tramp (no, okay, he corrects that as soon as he thinks it—there was nothing wrong with the girl, even if Jamie does hate her a little right now). If Tyler didn’t want Jamie to ignore him, he shouldn’t have done it in front of Jamie like that. Like he wanted Jamie to see.

If Tyler wants to do that kind of thing, he can handle being sad afterward.

It’s a vindictive thing to think. But Jamie can’t be anything else right now, even while he tries to focus on the puck and ignore the scent at the other end of the ice.

He goes home after practice and tries to convince himself that this is a good thing. Before this, he was still hoping—probably in a really obvious way—and it was going to bite him in the ass sooner or later. Better that it be sooner, so that he can get over it.

It’s all well and good to be philosophical about it, but that doesn’t prepare him for the sight of Tyler at his door, looking like something someone scraped off the floor.

His eyes are red, like he’s been crying, and his scent is bleak. “I’m sorry,” he says, and it’s all Jamie can do not to scoop him up in his arms right then and there.

But coming on too strong is what got him in trouble before. “You are?” he asks instead.

“I didn’t get it,” Tyler says. His voice is rough, young-sounding. “I thought it would be okay, that it was—what I was supposed to do, I just—”

“Oh,” Jamie says. He doesn’t understand that at all, doesn’t know how Tyler could possibly think Jamie would want him to do anything like that, but Tyler’s chin is dropped and his lashes are down and his whole body is screaming submission.

“I don’t want you to be disappointed in me,” Tyler says, and he raises his eyes then, cautious, and the plea in them punches Jamie in the gut. Of course; Jamie is the closest thing to an alpha Tyler has; and if he’s picking up on even a tenth of what Jamie’s feeling toward him today—

Jamie’s arms are around him before he has time to think better of it. All he can think is, _he needs me,_ and his body answers the plea before his mind can weigh in on it. And Tyler just goes with it: relaxes against Jamie’s chest like it’s where he wants to be.

Fuck, Tyler in his arms. It’s so much more intense than anything else Jamie ever feels otherwise. Like touching Tyler wakes up whole parts of the world that are usually asleep. Tyler feels small in his arms, even though he’s not—he’s a hockey player; he’s almost as big as Jamie—but here he folds into Jamie’s chest and goes limp and Jamie can feel the way he trusts him. Can sense it in the laxness of his muscles. Tyler’s in his arms now and Jamie’s never going to let anything bad happen to him again. That’s not a promise he can make—not even one Tyler wants him to make. But it’s the one that sings through Jamie’s blood. _You’re mine,_ he thinks. And maybe it’s a lie, but right now, he doesn’t care.

“I think I don’t know how to make decisions,” Tyler says, a soft sound against Jamie’s shoulder. “Even when I think I’m doing okay, it always turns out wrong.”

The words twinge in Jamie’s chest—that Tyler, this warm soft Tyler who feels so right in his arms, could ever feel like he’s wrong. “You’re doing fine,” he says to him, and he wills Tyler to believe it. “You’re doing—there’s no one else I’d rather have on my team. No one else I’d rather have next to me on the ice. I swear it.”

For a moment he thinks maybe he’s said too much. Tyler goes stiff, a little, and Jamie’s afraid he’s going to pull away. But then Tyler turns his head and presses his face into Jamie’s neck.

All Jamie’s breath leaves him in a shuddering sigh. Tyler’s whole face is pressed again Jamie’s skin, his beard scratchy and his breath hot and fuck, Jamie thinks he can feel Tyler’s eyelashes. It feels like everything he’s ever wanted, and he thinks: _I’ll wait._ Maybe he won’t ever get what he wants. But if there’s even the slightest chance that this is something he can keep—Tyler in his arms, soft and trusting and breathing hot damp breath against his skin—Jamie will wait.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter might be a bit better if you've read the original -- there are a few events I mention briefly that get more detail in Tyler's point of view. But hopefully it works either way. :)

“I don’t know,” Jordie says later, when Jamie tells him about Tyler’s apology. “It was still a shitty thing to do.”

The words prickle on Jamie’s skin. “He has issues.”

“No kidding.” Jordie snorts. “But hey, if you want to let him out of the doghouse, be my guest.”

It’s not that Jamie wants to. Or—yeah, he does want to. But it’s more that it’s impossible for him to stay mad, when Tyler’s cozying up to him again and giving him bright glances across the ice.

“Omega-whipped,” Jordie sings into Jamie’s ear when he’s standing, a little dazed, after one such encounter.

“Better not ever let Jenny hear you say that.”

Jordie makes a face. “Good point.” Their sister’s always been big on not being defined by being an omega. She’s probably going to marry her beta boyfriend soon. It’s one of the things that helped Jamie realize he didn’t need a traditional alpha-omega relationship to be happy—or at least, that’s what he thought until he met Tyler.

That might be more about Tyler being Tyler than Tyler being an omega. But the distinction is pretty much an academic one when Jamie can’t even bring himself to look at anyone else.

They settle into a pattern as the season gets rolling. A good pattern, mostly. Jamie doesn’t get Tyler in all the ways that he wants, but he does get to have him in his life. He gets to be the person Tyler hugs first on the ice after a goal and the person he snuggles up to when he’s sleepy at the end of the day and the person who comforts him when Boston is full of shitheads who boo him on his old home ice.

It’s not all he wants. There are times when he catches a glimpse of sadness in Tyler’s eyes and aches to be able to take Tyler’s face in his hands and kiss it better. There are times when an arm around Tyler’s shoulders while they watch TV doesn’t feel like enough and it’s all Jamie can do not to tug him closer. There are times when Tyler smells of desire, and Jamie’s breath comes short and he avoids eye contact until he can get away and jerk off furtively and desperately under the covers, imagining Tyler’s slick mouth and slicker ass against him.

He’s pretty sure Tyler can tell when Jamie gets like that. Maybe he can’t smell Jamie’s arousal, but Jamie’s not that smooth about hiding an erection. Tyler doesn’t say anything, though, and so neither does Jamie.

That doesn’t mean Jamie does nothing. He wants to make it clear to Tyler that he’s open to courting him if that’s what Tyler wants. It’s a tricky balance: Jamie can’t do anything that will make Tyler feel obligated to accept him, but he has to keep giving Tyler openings. Creating opportunities for him to say yes.

He decides to try something shortly after they come back from Boston. He can still feel the way Tyler curled up next to him that night on the road, head heavy on Jamie’s shoulder, and yeah, he’s supposed to be giving Tyler time, but he just wants so badly. Doesn’t want to wait before he can have that every night.

Tyler says yes. Jamie goes to his door and asks him out, and his hands are shaking a little, but Tyler says yes, and Jamie gets to take him to a bar and buy him a drink and sit next to him and stare at his dimples and laugh at his jokes and then Tyler asks when the rest of the team is joining them.

“Huh?” Jamie says.

“The other guys,” Tyler says, and Jamie feels like he’s speaking a foreign language. “Are they meeting us here?”

Jamie stares at him, and says no, and smells the sharp bite of Tyler’s panic.

“Back so soon?” Jordie says a couple of hours later when Jamie comes through the door. “How was your date?”

“It wasn’t a date,” Jamie says. “Didn’t you get the group text?”

Jordie stares at him, then gropes in his pocket for his phone. “Why is there a group text inviting me on your date?”

It’s not like it was a problem. Jamie still got to sit next to Tyler all night and share his smiles. If Tyler needed other guys around in order to be more comfortable, then Jamie could put up with that. “I guess it was too soon for me to ask him out.”

“It’s been like three months,” Jordie said. “You wouldn’t think it would be too soon for a date.”

Jamie shrugs. Either that, or Tyler really isn’t into him, and that makes his stomach want to turn to lead and settle around his ankles. “He gets to set the pace.”

Jordie looks at him for a long moment. “Okay,” he says. “But at some point, you’re gonna have to stop waiting around for him.”

Jamie doesn’t have a response to that.

***

Tyler doesn’t seem any different after their failed date. He still stands a little too close and smells like desire and makes torturous hope bloom in Jamie’s chest.

Actually, given all that, it’s a surprise the other NHL wolves don’t catch on sooner.

They’re in Vancouver when it happens. They’ve just beat the Canucks 2-1, and Jamie and Tyler both got assists on Val’s goal. It’s not as good as when they assist on each other’s goals, but it’s still good to come together in a successful play like that. Tyler keeps meeting Jamie’s eyes in the locker room, and Jamie knows what he wants—even if they don’t have the kind of relationship where Jamie can praise him the way he deserves, Tyler still feels the need for positive feedback. It’s written in every line of his body. And Jamie would be a terrible alpha if he didn’t give him what he needed.

He waits until they’re outside of the locker room. He tries not to do this kind of thing in front of the guys. It’s not like the team doesn’t know they’re wolves, but Jamie doesn’t like to flaunt it—especially with Tyler, who seems so jumpy about the whole concept. So Jamie times his changing to make sure he’s exiting the locker room at the same time as Tyler, and then tugs him around a corner.

“Hey,” he says, putting a hand on Tyler’s shoulder. “You did good out there tonight.”

Tyler’s face lights up right away. It’s ridiculous, what praise will do to him. Jamie loves how easy he is for it. “Yeah?”

“Loved the way you took my pass,” Jamie says, and he doesn’t mean it as anything suggestive, but Tyler’s eyes go dark and his scent changes. Jamie knows it doesn’t mean anything—this happens all the time—but he still takes a minute to breathe it in and feel it affect his body.

And that’s when Ryan Kesler comes around the corner.

Kesler’s not a bad guy. Sure, he and Jamie have had their share of shoving matches on the ice, but that’s just what two alphas will do when you put them in the middle of a hockey game. Jamie doesn’t have anything against him, really. But he’s just about the worst person to come across them just now.

At first Kesler just looks startled to see them there. Then his face changes, a look of delight blooming over his features.

“Oh, fuck,” Jamie says, but it’s too late. Kesler’s already backing up, laughing hysterically.

“What was that?” Tyler asks, turning around.

Kesler is long gone. Jamie considers running after him, but what would he even say? “Don’t worry about it,” he says instead. Tyler’s not on the wolf text. He’s not the one who’s going to have to deal with this.

 _HAHA MOTHERFUCKERS I WS RIHGT,_ Jamie’s phone reads when he pulls it out a few minutes later. Then there’s a string of emojis that are mostly wolves and eggplants and two boys holding hands.

 _wtf?_ Eric Staal’s text says.

 _JAMIE AND SEGS,_ Kesler writes. _SITTING IN A TREE. PROBS HVNG BABIES._

 _??????,_ Kaner says.

Jamie rolls his eyes. _Nothing’s going on,_ he sends.

 _What are we even talking about?_ Jordan Staal asks.

 _The fine omega ass that Bennie better be tapping,_ Kesler says.

 _Ha, he wishes,_ Jordie says, and Jamie looks across the bus, betrayed.

Jordie just grins back at him. A minute later Jamie gets another text, this one private. _Not like it was gonna stay secret._

Jamie groans and angles his phone screen so Tyler can’t possibly see it from where he’s napping on Jamie’s shoulder.

***

Jamie always knew the wolf chat was gossipy. But he would have thought they’d find something to discuss other than his non-relationship with Tyler.

“Are you really surprised?” Marc asks him when the Rangers come to Dallas a few days later. They’re chatting after the game, which Dallas lost, and Jamie’s frustrated with everything.

“There isn’t even anything to talk about. We’re not together,” Jamie says.

“That’s not exactly how Jordie tells it,” Marc says, and then Jamie has to shush him because Tyler’s headed their way.

“You ready to go?” Tyler asks. Then, “Hey, Staal.”

“Hey,” Marc says, smiling with all his teeth.

“I’ll just be a minute,” Jamie says to Tyler.

“’Kay,” Tyler says with a little smile. He tugs on Jamie’s shirt sleeve before he heads off, his fingers grazing Jamie’s wrist and making him shiver.

Jamie turns back to find Marc giving him the most skeptical look he can imagine. “So nothing’s going on,” Marc says.

“Just—don’t say anything to him, okay?” Jamie says. “He’s kind of jumpy about the whole thing. I don’t want him to think I told the whole wolf chat we’re dating.”

“If he’s met Kesler, I’m sure he’ll understand,” Marc says.

***

Tyler doesn’t start acting any weirder than usual, so Jamie’s guessing he hasn’t found out.

“Maybe we should invite him to join the chat again,” Jordie says. “Just so he can feel like part of the community.”

“I will end you,” Jamie says.

He does feel a little guilty about wanting to keep Tyler away from the other NHL wolves, but that’s not really his doing—Tyler could obviously join the chat if he wanted to. And he does seem to be in touch with Kaner, anyway, if the invitation to meet the Kane-Toews babies in Chicago is any indication.

Jamie gets invited, too, which makes him a little suspicious about Kaner’s motivations. Kaner’s been on the chat, after all. Jamie’s on the alert for all sorts awkward comments.

He fails to be on the alert for adorable babies, and that turns out to be a mistake.

He just…he didn’t think this through. Obviously he knew, on one level, that Tyler would be in the same room as Kaner’s kids. But he didn’t give any thought to how completely unprepared he was to deal with the sight of Tyler with a baby in his arms.

It’s such a cliché, the idea of an omega being hotter with a baby. It comes from the kind of alpha who thinks omegas shouldn’t work outside the home or answer back or, God forbid, have an opinion of their own. Jamie’s not like that—omegas are people, just like alphas are people, and sure, some of their instincts are different, but that doesn’t mean they’re not good for anything but childbirth or other shit like that.

Then he sees Tyler smiling down at the chubby face of Joey Kane-Toews, and his heart stops.

It’s just—Jamie wants that. He didn’t realize until just now: he knew he wanted Tyler, but he didn’t know how badly he wanted the rest of it. He wants—he wants to _marry_ Tyler. He wants to start a family. He wants to see Tyler holding a baby that’s part Jamie and part Tyler and all theirs. A whole house full of laughter and spilled milk and Tyler’s giggles and the softness in his eyes when he looks at their children. Jamie wants it so badly he can’t even speak.

Tyler looks over at him, and his face changes, and for a moment Jamie is sure he’s feeling it, too. Jamie can barely breathe for how strongly his heart is pounding.

“Oookay, then,” Kaner says, startling Jamie out of it after he doesn’t even know how long. “I’ll just…get Jonny.”

Jamie doesn’t love spending time around Kaner when Tazer’s there. It’s unnerving to be looked at so territorially by someone who isn’t even a wolf. Jamie can feel Tazer’s eyes on him while Tyler plays on the floor with the kids, like he’s afraid Jamie’s going to swoop in and steal his family or something, and Jamie wants to laugh. Reassure him that if there’s anyone he’d run away with, it’s the guy on the floor who has five babies crawling over him right now. The guy who’s scratching behind wolf ears and smiling up at Jamie like he doesn’t even realize what he’s doing to Jamie’s insides.

“Oh look, kids, Uncle Jamie wants to play,” Tyler says, and when the little wolves tug Jamie down, it’s all he can do not to roll over and kiss Tyler on the mouth. Never mind the five kids between them.

Jamie doesn’t text with Kaner one-on-one, generally. They’re sort of friends, because of the wolf chat, but Kaner probably talks to Tyler more than he does Jamie. Omega bonding and all that. But later that day, when they’re back in Dallas, Jamie gets a text from Kaner that’s not through the chat.

 _good to see u and segs today,_ Kaner sends. Then, _hey, so he knows you like him, right?_

Jamie bites his lip. He still hasn’t actually confirmed anything about his own feelings on the wolf chat, but Jordie has, and Jamie doesn’t have any illusions about his own subtlety. Of course, by that token, Kaner shouldn’t even need to ask. _Yeah ive made it pretty clear,_ he says.

 _u might want to make it clearer,_ Kaner sends, and Jamie stares at his phone for a couple of minutes.

“Hey,” he says to Jordie when he comes into the living room. “Kaner thinks maybe I need to make it more obvious to Tyler that I like him.”

Jordie laughs so hard he falls onto the floor.

Jamie does think about it in the weeks before Christmas, though. He doesn’t know how Tyler could have missed that Jamie’s into him. If anything, Jamie feels like he’s gone too far in the other direction—pushed Tyler further than he wants to be pushed. But maybe there’s a chance he’s read it wrong, and Tyler’s mixed signals are because he doesn’t understand what he’s been getting from Jamie? Jamie doesn’t have a lot of experience wooing omegas—not this slowly, over such a long period of time—and maybe Tyler has a different set of expectations for it.

In any case, it couldn’t hurt to make things a little clearer.

Jamie thinks about just ramping up the casual touches they exchange every day. But they already touch a lot, and anything more might seem kind of pressuring. So he thinks, okay, maybe one gesture—something clear, something quick, something that won’t require Tyler to respond within the moment but which will leave him with no doubts about what Jamie wants.

They have a few days off for Christmas. Jamie and Jordie are flying home straight from LA after their game against the Kings, so Jamie stops by Tyler’s hotel room before their pre-game naps.

Tyler answers the door in rumpled sweats. Jamie wants to swallow him whole.

“Hey, I just wanted to give you your Christmas present,” he says, stepping into the room, and Tyler’s face drops.

“I didn’t—I didn’t know we were—”

“No, it’s okay,” Jamie says. The whole team did a Secret Santa earlier that month; Jamie got Chaser a new iPhone dock. “I just thought this would be something fun we could do together.”

Tyler opens the envelope Jamie hands him. “Movie tickets?” he says.

“I know you were talking about going to see the new Hobbit movie sometime.” Jamie stuffs his hands in his pockets. “These are for an off-night after we get back from Victoria, so I figured we could…”

Tyler’s face breaks into a smile. “Yeah, totally, that would be awesome.”

He looks so happy that Jamie feels his cheeks heat. He’s not done yet, though: movie tickets aren’t a clear enough gesture. Plenty of friends go to the movies together. The gesture has to be something Tyler couldn’t misunderstand.

With Tyler beaming at him like this, two feet away and smelling so happy, it’s easy for Jamie to follow through on his plan. “Merry Christmas,” he says, and steps in close and wraps his arms around Tyler and presses his lips very softly just below his ear.

It makes a shiver go all through Jamie’s guts as he does it. There’s no way Tyler won’t recognize it for what it is: no wolf would kiss another wolf’s neck without it being a romantic thing. If Tyler didn’t know before, he does now.

Jamie’s heartbeat is thudding in his ears. His lips catch on Tyler’s skin, and Tyler’s scent goes hot with arousal.

Jamie meant to pull back right away, to keep Tyler from feeling pressured. But Tyler’s clinging to him, and it feels so good to hold him and breathe into his hair. He could—just another minute. Just one more minute with Tyler warm and wanting in his arms.

Tyler’s the one who ends up pulling away, abruptly enough that Jamie’s startled into remembering that their hug wasn’t supposed to be this long. Tyler’s cheeks are pink. “I’ll see you after the holidays,” he says.

“Or at the game tonight,” Jamie says.

Tyler blinks. “Oh. Right. The game,” he says, and Jamie grins tentatively.

He’s not sure how that went, but—he’ll just have to wait and see.

***

It’s good, when they go and see the movie. Jamie missed Tyler over Christmas—dumb to miss him when it was only like three days, but it was all family stuff, and Jamie kept thinking about how maybe next year Tyler could be there when they eat their Christmas Eve dinner, when they drink eggnog around the fire, when they go for their midnight run in the fields. He knows he’s letting his imagination run away with him, but it’s hard to rein it in when it’s so easy to picture the way Tyler would laugh with Jamie’s mom and curl up beside him to steal sips of his eggnog.

He tells himself not to get too excited when he goes to pick Tyler up for the movie. It’s not supposed to be a date. Well—if Tyler wanted it to be a date, it a hundred percent could be, but Jamie’s not going to push it. It’ll just be two friends hanging out, and if those friends happen to want to hold hands during the movie, well, Jamie has no objections.

“I don’t even remember what happened in the first one,” Tyler says as they get out of the car. “The dwarves were going to a mountain, right?”

“Um,” Jamie says. “I actually didn’t see it.”

“Jamie!” Tyler hits him on the arm. “What are you doing seeing the second one with me, then?”

“I don’t know.” It actually didn’t occur to him. He was just thinking about what Tyler would want. “I thought it would be something fun to do together.”

Tyler’s smile is surprised and a little shy. Jamie wants to kiss it off him.

He settles for buying them popcorn, over Tyler’s objections. “But you bought the tickets,” Tyler says when they’re in the concession line.

“This is your Christmas present,” Jamie says. “You shouldn’t be buying the popcorn.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t get you anything,” Tyler says. He’s grinning and bouncing on his toes. If he sounded any firmer, Jamie would have to back off and let him do it. But the way he says it—dimples in full display—it’s so flirty. And yeah, Tyler says flirty things all the time, but he’s holding Jamie’s gaze, and Jamie can just picture himself stepping closer. Whispering in Tyler’s ear some of the ways Tyler might give him something.

Jamie shakes his head, quick, to clear it. He bumps his elbow against Tyler’s arm. “Let me do this for you.”

“Yeah, okay,” Tyler says, and the arch of his neck is pleased.

Jamie might miss a few things during the movie. He’s too busy being conscious of Tyler’s shoulder touching his. And yeah, they cuddle up together on the couch all the time, but this is at the movies. It’s such a date setting. And Tyler’s shoulder is pressed to his.

Jamie’s still not going to push it. But he eases his hand onto the armrest—just an opportunity. An offer for Tyler to accept if he wants to.

He tries not to be too disappointed when Tyler doesn’t.

They’re giggling when they leave. “The solid-gold dwarf, though?” Tyler says. “Like, how was that a reasonable plan?”

“Are you saying that’s not what you want for your birthday?” Jamie says, and Tyler giggles even more, doubling over and using Jamie’s arm for support.

It’s okay that he doesn’t get to kiss Tyler good night, that he has to go home alone. It’s okay.

The thing is, though, Jamie’s starting to wonder if there’s anything they’re waiting for. He gets that any relationship between the two of them would be a big deal—this wouldn’t be like the casual dating he’s done in the past. But it’s not like they’d have to bond right away. And maybe Tyler’s not ready to be out as a wolf or as someone who dates guys, but Jamie would be okay keeping things secret. If only Tyler would let him hold him.

He has dreams sometimes where Tyler collapses into his arms. Just that: Tyler lets go of all muscle control and lets Jamie hold him up. Jamie gets to nuzzle him and press against Tyler’s body and Tyler sighs against his skin and then Jamie wakes up and feels antsy all through breakfast, aching for something he doesn’t have.

The ache goes away, mostly, when he gets distracted enough by daily life. But it’s never gone entirely. And Tyler is always around, being bright-eyed and smiley and fucking awesome on skates and Jamie doesn’t want to wait any longer.

It gets worse when Jessica comes to town a couple of weeks after Christmas. Jamie loves Jessica: can’t imagine a better future sister-in-law. But right now, seeing her with Jordie makes him want to scream.

They’re just so good together. They’re relaxed and comfortable and utterly themselves and so happy with it. They move in and out of each other’s space with easy touches, like they have a right to the other person’s body, and Jamie digs his nails into his palms and thinks, when, when, when will Tyler want that, _will_ he even want that, will Jamie be able to hold him like he wants to, to pull him close and kiss the sweet shape of his mouth and feel Tyler come apart under him and…

Tyler invites him over a few days after Jessica gets there. It’s a night when they don’t have a game, but they had an intense practice that morning, and Jamie could feel Tyler’s frustration with their losing streak. It made him want to do something about it—dumb, misguided alpha things like putting Tyler on his knees on the ice and ordering him not to feel responsible for it. Things that Jamie thought were part of alpha stereotypes and only happened in the backwoods of the north, from dickbags who felt like they needed to compensate for something. And he still sort of thinks that—thinks he wouldn’t give in to those urges even if he and Tyler belonged to each other. But there are other times when he thinks maybe Tyler would want him to.

Tonight is one of those nights, when Tyler answers the door smelling of desperation and Jamie thinks, _I could put you down._

It’s both a hot thought and a warm one. Hot, because of the way his dick stirs at it, and warm, because he’d be giving Tyler what he needs. He’d be taking Tyler’s frustration and turning it into something that would leave him sweaty and sated and shivering. He would make Tyler feel so good, and—

Jamie can’t do that. Tyler would probably go along with it, even if he didn’t really want to, and it would be awful.

He follows Tyler over to the couch instead and doesn’t make any move to touch him. Not when Tyler’s this vulnerable; not when he’s made it clear that Jamie isn’t what he wants, or at least not right now. Jamie settles in to watch the movie and ignores the scent of Tyler’s desperation. But then he leans forward and his shoulder brushes against Tyler’s and Tyler—Tyler makes this _sound._

Fuck. It’s the kind of sound Tyler would make if Jamie really were taking him down. It shoots straight through Jamie’s gut and wakes up every instinct that tells him to take charge of Tyler’s body and give him what he needs.

He doesn’t think about it when he puts his hand on Tyler’s back. “Are you okay?” he asks.

Tyler pushes into the touch. His skin is hot through the thin fabric of the shirt. “Um,” he says, and his voice is like the rest of him: on the verge of breaking.

Jamie doesn’t know why Tyler would let things get this bad. Except—yes, maybe he does: if Tyler’s let it get this bad and isn’t taking what Jamie has obviously been offering, he must have really strong reasons to hold off. He must not want Jamie to lean in and press him to the couch and make them both pant. He must not want Jamie to be his alpha right now.

Okay. That’s fine. Jamie can still be _an_ alpha. He can do for Tyler what he’d do for any member of his pack who was suffering.

“You’re okay,” he murmurs, and draws Tyler in close, his head on Jamie’s shoulder, and puts his hand around Tyler’s neck. It’s a dominant move, but not a seductive one: just one of pack, of _you’re okay here,_ of _I won’t let anything hurt you._

It must be the right thing to do, because Tyler relaxes right away. Goes fully boneless, his whole body pressed against Jamie’s side. It’s close enough to what Jamie’s been dreaming about that he has to grate his teeth, but he pushes those feelings aside. This is about being what Tyler needs. Tyler obviously needs an anchor; and maybe Jamie hasn’t been giving him enough of one, with how careful he’s been not to overstep Tyler’s desires. It’s not like Tyler is technically pack, but he might as well be. Wolves need community to live, and Jamie and Jordie are as close as it comes for Tyler. Whether it’s official or not, Jamie has a responsibility here.

And it feels so good, to let Tyler lean against him.

They stay like that for the whole movie. Jamie lets himself get lost in the familiar action of the first _Star Trek_ reboot and in Tyler’s slow, even breaths. It’s lulling enough that he’s not quite thinking, after the movie ends, when Tyler begins to stir: he tightens his hand a little and strokes his thumb down the side of Tyler’s neck.

He knows right away that it was a mistake. The bottom drops out of Tyler’s scent, and it goes hot. Jamie can feel Tyler’s whole body change: his breathing picking up, his eyelids going heavy, his heart starting to race. Driving blood to other parts of him. Turning his skin red, a sweet flush that would be so hot against Jamie’s lips if he were to—

Jamie drags a tongue over his lips. Tyler’s eyes track the motion, pupils blown wide, and when he leans in a little it feels like electricity against Jamie’s skin. Tyler’s so close, warm and turned on and yearning, and Jamie aches to lean just a little closer and meet him in the middle. He can practically taste Tyler’s mouth already, in the sweetness of the air around them, in the pink wetness as he parts his lips. He’s going to taste, finally, finally, he’s going to get to slide his hands along Tyler’s skin and—

Tyler wrenches himself away.

It’s like a gust of cold air: the scent breaks, still heavy with arousal, but it’s acrid now. The charge is gone, the promise.

“Um, I guess I should go to bed,” Tyler says. He shifts, putting his shoulder toward Jamie. “Early practice tomorrow and everything.”

It’s so sudden that Jamie wonders if he was imagining things. But no—he can still smell it on Tyler’s skin. He just doesn’t get how Tyler could turn away. No, he doesn’t get _why_ Tyler would turn away. Why he wouldn’t take what they both so obviously want.

He realizes, belatedly, that Tyler’s still waiting for a response. “Yeah,” he manages, and—and he can see Tyler’s body react. Can see the shift in his shoulders at Jamie’s voice. Knows he wants to turn back. Why doesn’t he? Is there something so wrong with Jamie that Tyler can’t let himself do this?

Maybe Tyler will tell him. Maybe if Jamie asks. He’s not sure he can stand to hear it, but maybe he needs to—needs to make a clean break of it. Stop living on the hope that comes from the flutter of Tyler’s breath.

He opens his mouth to ask, and just as he does, Tyler stands up. “So, great, I’ll see you in the morning!” Tyler says, voice full of fake cheer, and then he’s gone. Gone into the kitchen, and—gone.

Jamie leans forward and props his head on his hands. His whole body is throbbing, his cock and his nipples and his tongue and every inch of his skin.

This is going to break him.

He can’t stay here. Not smelling like he does. Well—Tyler probably can’t tell how he smells. But Jamie’s still an alpha, and he’s in Tyler’s space and two seconds from jumping him and that can’t stand. He has to go.

He’s in the foyer putting on his shoes when Tyler comes back out of the kitchen. His scent is subdued now: quieter, but still laced with arousal, and it tugs on something in Jamie’s chest. _Why not?_ he thinks, again, and he has to look away to keep from saying it out loud. It would be the wrong question. It would be pressure. He can’t make his own desire something Tyler has to deal with.

He has to say something, though. Has to make sure he hasn’t broken things. He waits until he’s standing up again, shifting from foot to foot. “So—so I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?” he asks, and he hates the way his voice sounds vulnerable.

Tyler smiles, though. It’s a shaky smile, but it’s enough to make Jamie relax a little. Whatever happened, Jamie hasn’t broken things. “Yeah. Tomorrow,” Tyler says, and Jamie looks at him and suddenly his desire sweeps him under like a wave: he feels like he’ll die if he can’t touch Tyler, if he can’t breathe his air, and he has to grip the door frame to keep from reaching out. He can’t let himself do that. He can’t. He _can’t._

He staggers backwards into the safety of the hall and gets the hell out of there.

***

“Jesus!” Jordie says when Jamie gets back to the apartment two minutes later. His face breaks into a grin. “I’m happy for you, but shower next time, okay?”

“What?” Jamie says. “No. We. What?”

Jordie’s smile dims. “Sorry. You just smelled like—” He comes a little closer. “You were at Tyler’s, right?”

“Yeah,” Jamie says shortly. He really doesn’t want to talk about it.

Jordie takes another breath, deeper this time. “But you didn’t…”

Jamie can’t help it. He just wants to keep it together and get out of there, doesn’t want to have to answer any questions, but he can’t help it. His face crumples.

“Oh God.” Jordie raises his hands. “I’m sorry. Forget I said anything.”

Jessica pokes her head around the corner. “What’s going—” She sees Jamie, and her eyes go wide. She breathes in, deep. “Whoa.”

“He is fucking working you over, Chubbs,” Jordie says, and Jamie just—no.

“I’m going to bed,” he says and shoves his way past them to his room. They say some stuff, but he’s not listening. He doesn’t have the capacity for any well-meaning words of sympathy tonight.

He’s not planning to jerk off. It’s always terrible when he’s in a mood like this—he tries it sometimes after really awful games, to get some of the frustration out, and it just leaves him feeling hollow. But he gets under the covers and breathes deep and—Tyler. The smell of his arousal is lingering on Jamie’s skin, and it’s like a punch to the gut. Jamie rolls over and is fucking his fist before he even thinks about it, biting down on the pillow to muffle his scream.


	4. Chapter 4

Jamie tries to tell himself that’s it, after that. Tyler’s obviously rejecting him. But it doesn’t stick.

Tyler’s just so friendly, is the thing. Or, no—friendly is what Tyler is to Jordie. To Jamie, Tyler is fucking _inviting,_ doing all the same things he was doing before, baring his neck and smiling brightly and holding his eyes, like he never got Jamie to the point of leaning in for the hottest kiss of their combined lives and then pulled away. The very next day, they have practice and Jamie is all prepared to give him some space, but Tyler comes up to him with this hopeful grin and won’t leave until Jamie says hi to him, and then he goes all happy and tips his head back and practically asks to be nuzzled. Jamie doesn’t, of course. But it’s a near thing.

“Dude,” Jordie says when they get home. “What the fuck is up with you and Tyler?”

“I don’t know,” Jamie says miserably, and he really doesn’t.

It’s like Tyler wants to be around him even more than he did before blatantly rejecting him. Jamie goes crazy wondering about it, coming up with more and more far-fetched theories. Is Tyler…asexual? But no; he definitely smells like desire when Jamie’s near him. So maybe Tyler’s one of those asexual people who feels desire but doesn’t want to act on it for some reason. Jamie’s heard of those. Or maybe something bad happened to him in the past, and he’s afraid of sex. That wouldn’t explain the hookup this fall or all the sex he was supposedly having in Boston, but maybe he’s specifically scared of alphas. Or of Jamie. Maybe he’s Jamie-phobic. Or maybe…

Maybe he’s attracted to Jamie but doesn’t actually like him. Maybe he can tell that Jamie isn’t good enough.

Jamie tries not to think those things too often. And Tyler sure seems to like him, anyway. They’re spending a lot of time together: Jordie and Jessica are doing their own thing a lot, so it’s mostly Jamie and Tyler as January turns into February. Jamie feels like he’s on illegal uppers every time they’re together—he’s nervous already with the Olympics coming up, and being around Tyler ramps him up even further, makes him giddy.

The only time he can relax, ironically, is when he and Tyler hang out alone in his room on the road. They stretch out on Jamie’s bed and talk, and it’s like time just…slows down. Jamie can relax into the bed, because Tyler is here in Jamie’s space. Where he’s supposed to be. Not really—Jamie knows that Tyler doesn’t really belong in his space—but Jamie feels like he does on a gut level, and it lets him relax into this quiet bubble they create. Tyler just across the pillows, close enough to touch.

Jamie doesn’t touch him. Doesn’t dare. Sometimes their fingers brush together, though, and it sends a thrill over Jamie’s whole body. That’s when he starts to think maybe—maybe—but he’s made this mistake so many times before. He’s not going to push things. He’s going to wait and see what Tyler wants.

Their last night on the road before Jamie leaves for the Olympics, they’re lying on the bed together when Tyler’s scent changes. Goes a little nervous, a little intense—and it’s crazy that Jamie has gotten used to reading him so well, that he can just tell things like that. It makes him snap to alertness.

Tyler’s looking at him, but his eyes have lost their sleepy contentment. They’re darting around Jamie’s face. “Jamie,” he says, voice tight, and Jamie can hear the thud of his heart. “I wanted to—Jordie said something to me. About you.”

“Yeah?” Jamie’s casting his memory back. There are so many things Jordie could have said about him. Based on the tension that’s radiating from Tyler’s body, it’s something big. Jamie swallows against the churning of his stomach.

“He said—” Tyler closes his eyes for just a second. “He said you wanted to date a wolf.”

This is it. Jamie’s breath stills in his lungs, and his pulse speeds up to match Tyler’s. This is—it’s been months since Jordie said that, months, and Jamie’s felt like he’s been suspended in midair ever since then. He can feel himself finally about to land. “Yeah,” he croaks out.

His eyes are intent on Tyler’s face—like he could look anywhere else right now—so he sees the uncertainty spread over his features. “Yeah, like…”

Tyler can’t have doubts about what Jamie means. Not really. Jamie’s been so obvious. But maybe he wants to hear it. “Yeah, I want to date a wolf,” he says, and he tries to put into his voice all the certainty he feels. All the sureness that he and Tyler belong together.

He’s watching Tyler’s face, waiting for his acceptance, his smile, so he sees the moment it all shuts down. “Oh,” Tyler says, and Jamie—Jamie feels like he’s suddenly been planted in another conversation, because Tyler is pulling away. Closing off, drawing into himself, scent going sour and bleak.

This was the moment. Jamie thought this was the moment. “Is that…”

“No, yeah, I mean, that’s good. More power to you.” Tyler’s moving away. He’s sitting up, rolling away, and—and Jamie’s been telling himself this whole time that he doesn’t know how Tyler feels, that he isn’t counting on anything, but apparently he was lying because right now he feels like he’s been punched in the gut.

“I guess I should probably go to bed,” Tyler says. “Flight tomorrow and all,” and Jamie feels numb.

“Sorry if that’s—” Jamie says. “I mean—”

“No, no.” Tyler’s smile is so fake. It’s wavering. Jamie did that—Jamie’s feelings did that. “That’s totally—um, an omega, right?”

It’s an out. This is when Jamie could be breezy, could say, _Nah, whatever,_ or _It doesn’t even have to be a wolf, you know?_ and they could both pretend he’s not talking about Tyler. But he can’t even find the words for that. Can’t imagine getting them out. “Yeah,” he says instead. “If that’s—a possibility.”

“Right.” Tyler’s back is to Jamie. His scent is like—Jamie’s never smelled him like this, not even after a major loss. Jamie wants to fix it, but it’s his fault. “Well, I’ll see you in the morning,” Tyler says, and then he flees Jamie’s room and the door shuts behind him.

Jamie lies on the bed.

Idiot. That’s the word that comes to him. He’s such an idiot. He’s been thinking that they’ve been moving towards something. Telling himself that maybe Tyler needs time or has issues to work through or just needs to move at his own pace, and really what’s been going on is that Tyler doesn’t want him. It should have been obvious, really. All the times Jamie’s given him an opening and Tyler has drawn back from anything that’s more than bros, more than pack. Jamie should have seen it months ago.

He’s been going along, letting himself hope—and the whole time, Tyler’s been hoping he doesn’t get closer. Hoping Jamie’s just being friendly. Hoping he can get away without saying something.

God. The way Tyler pulled back tonight. He must really not want—all those times Jamie sat too close to him, leaned in because he thought Tyler was leaning back. And none of it was what he thought it was. Tyler doesn’t—

Tyler doesn’t _want_ him.

Jamie’s up before he can even think about it. He has to get away from the bed, away from the bedspread that smells like Tyler and the soft light of the lamp where they lay and talked and Jamie thought Tyler was feeling things back. He grabs his bag without caring what might or might not be in it and lurches down the hallway.

Jordie answers the door right away. Jamie can see Jessica on the Skype screen behind him, but he doesn’t even care right now. “Can I stay with you tonight?” he asks.

“Yeah, of course,” Jordie says, his arm going around him, and Jamie pushes into the touch and tries not to ache.

***

He fails, of course. He wakes up the next morning alone with his whole body hurting.

Jordie comes back into the room a couple of minutes later. Jamie hasn’t gotten out of bed yet, and he stays there with his eyes shut while Jordie moves around.

The mattress dips next to him, and the scent of coffee reaches his nose. “You don’t have to tell me what happened,” Jordie says. “But I got you coffee if you want it.”

Jamie manages to drag himself upright. He blinks blearily at Jordie and holds out his hands for the coffee.

“Was it Tyler?” Jordie asks a couple of minutes later, when half the coffee is inside Jamie.

“Of course it was Tyler.” What else has Jamie been this much of an idiot about lately?

“Did he…do something?” Jordie’s voice is careful.

Jamie tightens his hands on the coffee cup. “He remembers what you said in August.”

“And?”

Jamie’s voice hurts, like he’s been screaming. Or maybe like his throat is too tight. “And he’s not a fan of it.”

His voice breaks on the word “fan.” He wants to shrink away from Jordie, but Jordie presses into him and Jamie lets his head fall on Jordie’s shoulder. Then it’s okay because Jordie can’t see him, and he can let himself go.

He might make some noises. And Jordie’s t-shirt might be wet when Jamie finally pulls away. “Sorry,” he says, voice thick.

“No, dude, I’m—” Jordie cuts off. “Look if you need—”

“Thanks.” Jamie climbs out of bed. “But I just need to get on the plane and go home.”

***

He’s planning to avoid Tyler. It’s bad enough he has to see him in the airport, always out of the corner of his eye, never close enough. Never far enough away, either. Even the sight of Tyler’s silhouette is enough to make Jamie’s heart stutter.

Once they get home, Jamie is planning to shut himself in his apartment, pack, and get ready for his trip to Sochi. He’s not going to think about Tyler, or what happened last night, or the hole that’s been carved somewhere south of his sternum.

“You’re going to the Olympics,” Jordie says in the middle of the afternoon, when Jamie’s supposed to be packing but keeps wandering out of his room like there’s something he’s forgotten. “What’s he done, eh?”

“It’s not like that,” Jamie says, even though there are plenty of answers to that question, like _got drafted second overall_ or _won the fucking Stanley Cup._

“Oh, so he didn’t lead you on for five months, then reject you?”

He—“No,” Jamie says. Tyler didn’t do anything wrong, not really. It would be easier if he had, maybe, because then at least Jamie could tell himself he doesn’t want him anymore. As it is—he remembers thinking a few days ago that he just wanted the uncertainty to end. But he would trade this for uncertainty any day.

“Well. You’re better off forgetting him,” Jordie says. “Go kick some ass in Sochi and sleep with some hot-ass Olympic athletes and forget that loser.”

“That’s the plan,” Jamie says.

It is, more or less—maybe without the sleeping-with-other-athletes part, since every time Jamie thinks about having sex with someone who isn’t Tyler he wants to throw up. But the forgetting, yeah: that’s the plan. He’s going to focus on the fact that he’s _going to the fucking Olympics_ and not think about Tyler again for another two weeks.

That is the plan, anyway, except that he’s failing terribly at it.

He hasn’t even left yet. And maybe that’s the problem: that he’s still at home, in the space where he’s used to thinking about Tyler. But he can’t get him out of his head. He can’t stop—he can’t stop feeling _guilty._

Yeah, Tyler probably wanted space this morning. But he probably didn’t want Jamie to avoid him entirely. Jamie’s not Tyler’s alpha, but he’s still an alpha, the only one Tyler’s got around on a regular basis, and Jamie knows how much that kind of avoidance can hurt. What if he thinks Jamie doesn’t want anything to do with him, now that sex is off the table?

The smart thing would be to ignore all of that and focus on Sochi. Jamie knows that. But as the afternoon turns to evening, Jamie starts to think that maybe that’s not going to work for him. That if he doesn’t do something to lay those thoughts to rest, he won’t be able to focus on hockey at all.

He puts it off for another half an hour or so, and then he slips out of the apartment and goes down to Tyler’s apartment.

He can smell Tyler as soon as he’s outside the door. He must have just gotten back from working out, because the scent of his sweat is strong like it is when they get off the ice, and it fills up Jamie’s chest in a way that is momentarily too much. He thinks about stopping there and going back—but then he thinks about Tyler, spending two weeks thinking Jamie hates him now, and he knocks.

Tyler’s scent is even more overwhelming once he answers the door. For a second Jamie can only stare at him, at his pale face, at the uncertainty in his features, and then he blurts out, “I just wanted to say goodbye.”

Tyer’s face does something complicated that Jamie can’t quite parse. He doesn’t smell scared, or like he wants Jamie to go away, and that’s what Jamie’s looking out for. But his voice is quiet when he says, “Um. Yeah.”

There are things Jamie should maybe say, things like, _You don’t have to sleep with me to be my friend,_ and _I’m sorry I couldn’t control my stupid desires_ and _Please say you don’t hate me,_ but now that he’s in front of Tyler the words won’t come. All he wants is to wrap him up and make it okay again. Even if the thing that’s bothering Tyler is Jamie, Jamie still wants to be the one to fix it. Just wants to give in to it, one last time.

“Can I?” he asks, opening his arms a little, and for a second he thinks that he’s gone too far—that Tyler’s going to back away. But the way Tyler looks up at him isn’t rejection.

“I’m all gross,” Tyler says, as if Jamie can’t smell his sweat, as if Jamie hasn’t been getting drunk on it since he opened the door.

“I don’t care,” Jamie says, and the next second Tyler is in his arms, wrapped up and held tight and so good.

Tyler doesn’t hold anything back: his body melts into Jamie’s, his hands fisting the back of Jamie’s shirt, and Jamie just holds on. Breathes deep. Tries to commit it to memory. It hurts, because it reminds Jamie of all the reasons he wants him so much, but this—just this—feels worth it. Even if it never happens again. It almost feels worth everything Jamie’s been through, just to have this moment: Tyler held in his arms, cutting right to the center of something warm and soft and deep at the center of Jamie’s chest.

“Knock ’em dead,” Tyler whispers in his ear, air puffing against the sensitive skin, and Jamie shivers and holds tighter.

“I’ll do my best,” he says.

He doesn’t want to pull back. Ever. The thought of it makes panic flutter at the edges of his breath. If he lets go, Tyler might never—but he can’t stand in Tyler’s hallway forever, so finally, after long moments of Tyler’s body against his and Tyler’s scent in his nose, he pulls back.

“See you,” he says. His hand is still on Tyler’s side, warm from Tyler’s skin through the thin t-shirt, and it takes him a minute to pull it away. Then it’s just his eyes resting on Tyler’s face, on his wide eyes and the pinkness of his parted lips, until he gets strong enough to turn away and go home.

“Dude,” Jordie says when Jamie gets back. Jamie doesn’t need to wonder what he’s smelling; he can smell it himself: Tyler’s fresh sweat, all over the front of Jamie’s body, filling his belly with fire every time he breathes in.

“I know,” Jamie says. “You don’t need to say it.”

“Oooookay then,” Jordie says.

***

Jamie is okay. Or at least he sort of is. He has to be okay, because he’s at the motherfucking _Olympics._

It’s all one mad rush, after he gets to Sochi: like tumbling down a mountain, working for it, working harder than he ever has in his life, but the energy carrying him along. The raw talent. Jesus Christ, Jamie doesn’t belong here with these people, but somehow he’s holding his own, and it’s dizzying.

He doesn’t have a lot of time to think about the shit with Tyler. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel it: it’s like there’s a constant ache at the top of his stomach, just under his solar plexus, and he forgets long enough to wonder momentarily why it’s there before the memories come crashing down on him.

But there’s hockey to play. Really brilliant hockey, with the best players Canada has to offer. That’s enough to get Jamie’s mind off it for half an hour, for fifteen minutes, for the sixty seconds of a brutally intense shift.

It’s harder to escape it at night. That’s when his finger hovers over Tyler’s name in his text app and he has to fight not to send stupid things like _I miss you_ or _Are you okay?_ Jamie’s just strong enough to resist; he’s not strong enough to keep from texting his questions to Jordie.

_how would i know if hes okay were in barbados,_ Jordie sends to him. _go to sleep._

Jamie does. Eventually.

It’s also hard to forget about Tyler in the face of the endless questions from reporters about being a wolf. Jamie doesn’t get a lot of that during the normal season; he came out so long ago, and there are only so many new ways to phrase questions about what it’s like to be a wolf in the NHL. But Russia’s known for its anti-wolf laws, and with the new anti-gay laws on top of that, there are plenty of things for the press to ask Team Canada.

Jamie doesn’t get asked many of the anti-gay questions; he hasn’t dated a guy publicly enough. But Tazer gets paler and more tight-lipped after each press scrum, and he disappears every free minute they have. Jamie doesn’t need a wolf’s sense of smell to know he’s going to be with Kaner.

“Everything okay?” Jamie asks before one of their practices, dropping down next to Tazer in the locker room.

Tazer’s face is grim. He and Jamie aren’t close—Tazer hasn’t been around enough for them to get close this week—and Jamie wonders if maybe that was too intrusive, if he’s trying too hard to captain another captain. But then Tazer sighs, and his shoulders drop. “I know they said they’re not going to enforce any of the laws for the athletes,” he says quietly, “but I don’t really trust it, you know?”

Jamie knows. He can only imagine what it would be like for him if Tyler were here. He’s not really afraid for himself, as he’s told a million reporters so far—it would be too big a scandal to try to prosecute an Olympic athlete under the anti-wolf laws, especially an American—but if Tyler were here, he knows none of that confidence would hold. He’d be hovering, perpetually terrified. Not trusting any guarantee when it came to his omega’s safety.

Tazer’s got it twice as bad: Kaner’s a wolf and he’s openly gay. “You know none of us would let anything happen,” Jamie says.

“I know.” Tazer makes a hand gesture that basically means, _but…_

Jamie nods. “Look, hang in here,” he says, and he jostles Tazer’s elbow—nothing too intrusive, no assertion of dominance. Tazer may not be a wolf, but Jamie has a feeling he doesn’t need anything reminding him of that right now.

***

And then they win gold.

The buzzer sounds, and it’s like it makes them all weightless. They’re crashing into each other, ebullient, and all Jamie can think is, _Wait till I tell Tyler._

It’s a dumb thought on so many levels. For one thing, Tyler probably already knows—there’s no way he’s not watching the Olympic gold-medal game, and that knowledge is its own special thrill. But still, he can’t stop picturing Tyler’s face when Jamie shows him the medal. The image simmers in Jamie’s belly as he screams his joy into his teammates’ ears.

He rides a wave of endorphins back to Dallas. He can’t keep from smiling every time he thinks about the medal in his bag, and when he’s back in Dallas, the guys take him to a bar, and Tyler walks in—

He looks so good. For a minute Jamie can’t see anything else. Just Tyler turning towards him, his body opening, his face lighting up like the sun.

It’s like the thing two weeks ago didn’t even happen. They’re back where they were in January: Tyler sitting close, Jamie’s skin buzzing where Tyler’s pressed up against his arm. Shooting little grins at each other, the eye contact fizzing in Jamie’s stomach, until they’re smiling all the time. There are maybe some things Jamie should stop and think about here—some words of caution he should be saying to himself—but there’s beer and there’s a gold medal and there’s Tyler’s dimple when he grins and Jamie doesn’t want any of it to stop.

“Saw you score the game winner against the U.S.,” Tyler says when they’re a few beers in. “That was—man, that was a pretty goal.”

Jamie’s face is already hot, so he can’t even tell if he’s blushing. But his whole body feels warm at Tyler’s words. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, you know it was.” Tyler’s laughing, and he shoves at Jamie’s arm in a way that somehow ends up with them sitting closer. “You’re so good on the ice. Just, the way you move, man, I can’t even.”

Jamie’s stomach lurches. “Yeah?” he says again, and this time his voice is a little rough.

“Watching you, it was like…” Tyler’s fingers sketch a pattern on his lower arm, and when he looks up at Jamie his eyes are earnest. “You’re so good, Jamie, you know that?”

Fuck, Tyler’s so close. “Yeah,” Jamie says, low, and he’s not agreeing with Tyler’s words so much as the way he’s looking at him. With how close he’s sitting. With everywhere this is going, he agrees, a hundred percent. “Did you, um, did you watch it all?”

“Yeah, of course.” Tyler’s voice is a little breathy, and it hooks onto Jamie’s stomach and pulls. He sucks in a breath, and Jamie leans closer, feeling like he’s falling into Tyler’s eyes. “Watched you.”

Jamie swallows. His whole body is vibrating. “I—”

“A toast to the champ!” someone yells, and Jamie pulls back, startled. The team is raising glasses to him, and he lifts his beer, feeleing dazed. 

Tyler’s hand is still on his arm. It squeezes down. “Bathroom, be right back,” he says, and Jamie turns and watches him go, starts a conversation with Kari but keeps most of his mind on Tyler, on the way his eyes had flicked to Jamie’s and the warmth of his hand on Jamie’s arm and what might happen when he gets back.

It takes a few minutes for Jamie to realize Tyler’s been gone a while. Maybe a line for the bathroom, he thinks, but then a few more minutes go by and he starts looking around.

He can’t spot Tyler anywhere in the bar, but Jordie’s heading over to their table. “Hey, have you seen Tyler?” Jamie asks.

“Yeah,” Jordie says shortly. “Sent him home.”

Jamie needs a second to parse that, because it doesn’t make sense. “Wait, what?”

Jordie shrugs, and when Jamie frowns at him, he jerks his head up away from the table. Jamie scrambles out of his seat and goes a few steps away with him, so the other guys won’t be able to hear. “What do you mean, you sent him home?”

“I mean I sent him home,” Jordie says, face set. Then, when Jamie just frowns at him some more, he says, “You can’t keep doing what you’re doing with him, man.”

Something dangerous starts to rise within Jamie. “What do you mean?”

“The flirting thing.” Jordie waves his hand at the table. “I don’t know what you thought you were doing, but it needed to stop.”

The dangerous thing is spreading cold through Jamie’s chest. “That’s not your call.”

“When it’s my brother, it’s my call.”

“We were fine.” Jamie’s hands clench into fists. “I know what I’m doing. You don’t have to—”

“Look, we both know where this leads,” Jordie says. “He’s already proven he doesn’t want you. You need to stop torturing yourself with it.”

“You can’t just—” Jamie starts to say, then cuts himself off because Jordie’s right; Jamie knows he’s right. It’s what he’s been ignoring all evening. He wanted to ignore it, because otherwise it drains away all his gold-medal happiness and pulls him right back into the awful headspace he’s been in for so much of this year.

Tonight isn’t supposed to be like that. Jordie isn’t supposed to make it like that. “That wasn’t your call,” he spits again.

Jordie just looks at him, hard. “Like I said—”

“No.” Jamie says it in a voice he doesn’t use often: the one that channels all his alpha authority. He takes a step towards Jordie and stretches up so that their height difference becomes more obvious. “You don’t get to make calls like that. You aren’t the alpha here.”

Jordie’s eyes widen. Jamie sees it, and something primal in him rejoices. Then Jordie’s eyes narrow, and he says, “I don’t think—”

“No.” Jamie’s shaking. “You don’t get to think. You don’t get—”

“Dude.” Jordie puts his hand on Jamie’s arm, and Jamie flinches, throwing him off. Then—it’s like he remembers where he is, and he looks around to see that the people around them are staring.

“You need to calm down,” Jordie says, low enough that non-wolves wouldn’t be able to hear it over the bar noise.

“I…” Jamie is definitely shaking now. He runs a hand through his hair. “I think I’m gonna go home.”

Jordie just nods. Jamie turns and stumbles through the crowd.

***

He feels dumb in the morning. He’s not hungover, but he feels sick with shame every time he remembers the way he spoke to Jordie. The way he towered over him, layered alpha into his voice.

“I’m sorry,” he says when he walks into the kitchen, where Jordie’s reading a paper at the table.

Jordie shrugs. “It was a rough night.”

“I just…” Jamie scrubs a hand over his face. “God, I’m such an idiot.”

“You want him,” Jordie says simply.

Jamie lowers his head to rest it on the table. Fuck, he really, really does. The feeling of Tyler next to him last night, so happy, smiling like Jamie’s side was the place he wanted to be—it dug under Jamie’s skin, made him forget that it wasn’t real. That it’s not what Tyler wants.

“I told him to stay away from you,” Jordie says, and Jamie snaps his head up.

“You—what?”

“He needs to stop doing this to you,” Jordie says calmly.

Jamie’s breathe stutters out. He feels the words like a vice around his chest, making him panicky. Tyler away from him—but no, he _needs_ Tyler—

He doesn’t need Tyler. He needs to get over Tyler, which means that Jordie’s move was probably a good one. Even if it does make Jamie want to lash out and hurt him for it.

“Thanks,” he says, only mostly forced, and he swallows down everything else he wants to say and gets up to start making breakfast.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly shorter chapter, but it was ready to post and was at a stopping point and I didn't want to make you guys wait. Hopefully the early posting makes up for it. Happy Christmas Eve Eve! :D

True to what Jordie said, Tyler avoids Jamie at practice that day. Jamie tries to be glad about this but utterly fails.

If only Tyler weren’t avoiding him so thoroughly. Jamie thinks he could get by on a gradual weaning-off: if Tyler just dialed down the friendliness and the flirting but let Jamie stay in his life, it would maybe hurt less. But this is a total stonewall: Tyler turning away from him every time he walks into a room, Tyler avoiding his eyes in groups and ducking out after practice before Jamie can even think about talking to him.

“Had to happen,” Jordie says as Jamie stares after Tyler’s retreating back.

“Yeah,” Jamie says, but he can’t help thinking that it didn’t have to happen quite this much. He could have had just a little piece of Tyler to keep him going until he didn’t need him quite so badly.

Who is he kidding, though? There was never going to be a way to make this better.

Jamie sticks it out. There isn’t really anything else to do, and Jamie’s always been good at working hard at the things he needs to fix. This is a major one, and if he can get through it by gritting his teeth and plowing through a little more time, he’ll do it.

The thing is, though, that usually when he’s working hard at something, it’s only hard on himself. Now—he keeps catching sight of Tyler’s lowered head in the locker room, and he wants to go over to him just to be with him, sure, but also because maybe he can make Tyler look a little less grim. He doesn’t know what Tyler’s going through right now—Jamie’s never been the object of a friend’s hopeless crush the way Tyler is—but it’s obviously getting Tyler down, and every time Jamie sees him it’s hard not to do something to try to make things right.

Tyler’s looking thin, like he hasn’t been eating enough to keep up his weight. His eyes have dark circles under them all the time, even though he smells like sleep when he comes into the locker room. He laughs and jokes with the other guys, but Jamie can smell the sadness on him, can see it in his eyes when no one else is looking.

It’s just another temptation. But Jamie starts to wonder if maybe it’s one he should stop resisting.

“Fuck’s sake,” Jordie says, about a week after the Olympics. “I know you’re depressed, but, like…the fidgeting, dude. It has to stop.”

Jamie puts down the remote he was bouncing against the end table. “If you had a friend you found out was in love with you, would you want them to avoid you?”

There’s a long silence from Jordie. Then, “You should not start talking to Tyler again.”

“I’m not _not_ talking to him, though,” Jamie says. “He’s not talking to me.”

“So there’s your answer,” Jordie says. “He’s not talking to you. Leave it alone.”

Jamie tries to ignore how much that hurts: the idea that Jordie might be right. “What if he just thinks I don’t want him to talk to me, though? Like, he was fine at the bar that night, and then you told him…”

“I told him he should stop leading you on,” Jordie says. “If he wants to translate that as avoiding you entirely, that’s his problem.”

Jamie is quiet. That’s not really a distinction he can make: Tyler’s problems as distinct from his own. That’s part of the whole hopeless love thing, sure, but it’s also a wolf thing. Tyler may not officially be in his pack—Jamie may not officially even have a pack—but it’s a tough life, being a wolf in the NHL. Even Jamie and Jordie don’t really get enough community, enough contact, enough stability, and they have it better than almost any wolf Jamie knows. He can’t let Tyler slip into isolation. “I’m going to talk to him,” he says.

Jordie groans. “Fine, but don’t say I never gave you any good advice.”

***

Jamie’s a little terrified when he goes up to talk to Tyler. But Tyler gives him a little grin—not his usual, not one that lights up his face, but enough so that Jamie feels like he can speak. 

“Hey, I just wanted to say, um.” Fuck, Tyler’s so close, and Jamie’s body knows it. He drops his voice. “When I said the thing before break, I didn’t mean—like, you don’t have to stay completely away, you know?”

The half-grin on Tyler’s face shifts to something a little more hopeful. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Looking into Tyler’s eyes is too much. Jamie had forgotten how much it was. He ducks his head. “I—don’t want you to.”

Tyler’s scent changes—shades into something warmer, something happy. It’s wonderful and it’s awful, because it means that everything that was tense and sad about Tyler this week was Jamie’s fault. But the way Tyler’s looking at him, it’s hard for Jamie to hold onto regret. “Okay,” Tyler says.

“Okay.” Jamie lets himself smile the way he wants to—knows it’s dumb to be so happy when this still isn’t anything like what he wants, really, but he is just so bad at fighting this. “So, did you want to get lunch?”

It’s a little overwhelming, having Tyler across from him at a restaurant again. Fortunately, Tyler carries the conversation so that Jamie doesn’t have to. Tyler’s so good at that: drawing Jamie out and making things feel easy. It’s one of the reasons Jamie liked him so much at the start. It’s why he wants to make this work, even if it can be what he wants it to be.

He doesn’t do such a good job of remembering that when they’re putting on their coats to leave. Tyler’s in front of him, back to him, and his sweater gaps just a little above the top of his jeans when he reaches up, and his skin looks so soft, and Jamie just—

His fingers brush up against the skin without him consciously intending it. He jerks back a second later and busies himself with his own coat. He can feel his cheeks burning, but Tyler doesn’t say anything about it. Maybe didn’t notice. Maybe he’s just trying to keep it from being weird.

Things don’t feel weird on the car ride back to their building. Tyler’s quiet in the passenger seat, smiling at Jamie when he looks over. “That was nice,” he says when they get back to their building, and Jamie gives him this ridiculous smile and floats back to his apartment, avoiding Jordie so he doesn’t have to explain what he’s so happy about.

It would be smart to give it a little time before they hang out again. Jamie’s fixed the thing where Tyler thought Jamie never wanted to talk to him again, and now Jamie should look out for his own emotional health and not let himself slide back into his full-on Tyler addiction. But…the way Tyler walked close to him when they went into the restaurant, and the way his eyes crinkled when they talked about their power play goal…

Jamie makes it till the next morning. He’s going to see Tyler in just a few hours on their flight to Columbus, but he’s just sitting around his apartment and there’s so much time before the flight and before he can think better of it he’s down on Tyler’s floor, knocking on his door.

He realizes when Tyler answers that he doesn’t have a good reason for being there. Taking Marshall for a walk is a dumb suggestion—Tyler probably already did that today. But Tyler says yes right away.

“He loves getting some time outside before I take him to the kennel,” Tyler says, enthusiasm in his voice, and Jamie wants to bottle it and wear it next to his chest forever.

It ends up being a giddy walk in the park, Marshall getting loose and leading them on a chase and Jamie and Tyler running after him, laughing and silly and basically forgetting that they’re public figures who shouldn’t be making idiots of themselves in a park in the middle of Dallas. Tyler’s cheeks are pink with the wind and the run, and Jamie can’t pay attention to anything other than his face in the sunlight, and maybe that’s why he doesn’t notice the other omega until she’s practically on top of them.

“Hey, is this your dog?” she says, and Jamie turns around so fast he practically loses his balance.

He doesn’t meet that many wolves—there aren’t that many this far south, and he spends so much time at the rink. Omegas are even rarer. He hasn’t come across one in the past year, probably, and certainly not in Tyler’s presence.

So he’s not expecting the sudden, vicious urge to reject her.

He tamps down on it right away. This woman hasn’t even asked for anything yet. There’s no reason for him to make her know he doesn’t want her. There’s probably nothing wrong with her at all; she’s being perfectly nice, and—oh, she’s a fan, and thank God Tyler has it together enough to make small talk with her, because Jamie’s totally out of it, trying to keep from turning his back on her and rubbing himself ostentatiously all over Tyler.

“I know he would love to meet you,” the girl is saying, and Jamie’s not sure who she’s talking about. “Would you guys mind?”

Her eyes flick to Jamie. “Yeah, of course,” he manages to say, no idea what he’s agreeing to.

“Awesome. You guys are just—the best,” she says, and then she’s running off, and Jamie can finally relax.

“Um. Are you okay?” Tyler asks.

No. Jamie’s not okay. He’s in so deep here, and it’s a wonder Tyler is even willing to spend time with him anymore. “Oh. Yeah,” he says. He’s scrambling inside. “Just, you know. Omega from a strange pack, don’t want to say the wrong thing, you know?”

It’s not a bad excuse. It’s technically true, even if it’s not the reason for Jamie’s weirdness. But Tyler’s mouth drops open. “She—she was an omega?”

Jamie looks at him for a long moment, because—well, because nothing has ever been so obvious, except maybe that Tyler is an omega himself. But Tyler doesn’t give any sign that he was joking, so finally Jamie says, slowly, “Well, yeah. Did you not know that?”

“No,” Tyler says. “Was I supposed to?”

Jamie has obviously stepped into a weird parallel universe today. “Um. I mean, she’s sweating. I can still smell her from over here.”

“Oh.” Tyler nods, like that’s some kind of revelation. “My sense of smell is shit, remember?”

His—holy fuck, okay, Jamie knew that, but never in his life did he think it meant Tyler couldn’t tell what kind of wolf someone was. “Oh, yeah,” he manages, and then he realizes what else that means, and he says, “Wait, fuck, does that mean you can’t—”

“Hey!” The girl calls out before he can finish, and Jamie feels another surge of dislike for her, because never has he wanted to finish any question so badly as he wants to finish that one. But the girl is back, and there’s someone with her. A male someone.

An alpha someone.

Man, Jamie can just not catch a break today.

He does his absolute best to keep talking to the girl and ignore her hot unbonded alpha brother. But it’s not easy, especially when the brother starts talking to Tyler.

Jamie knows that look. He knows that smell—it’s what he smells like, he’s sure, when he’s talking to Tyler. It’s the smell of desire.

It’s so difficult to keep talking like nothing is wrong. So difficult not to give a shout and shove the other alpha away, challenge him for dominance right there in the park. So difficult not to slam him down like a rival D-man for even looking at Jamie’s—

“It’s been amazing, having you guys on the team,” the girl says. Jamie thinks her name is Allison. “I mean, there aren’t a lot of wolves in Dallas.”

Jamie tries to grin. It’s probably a useless effort, since she must be able to smell the rage that’s probably rolling off of him, but he can at least try to be polite. They’re fans, after all. “Yeah, I guess I haven’t met many others.”

“Hey, you should come out with us,” the guy says. “We could show you the scene.”

“Oh.” What is this guy, an idiot? Can he not smell how much Jamie wants to eviscerate him? “Um, I don’t know. We have a game in Columbus tonight, so.”

“Tomorrow, then.” The guy’s eyes on him are smiling, friendly, but there’s a glint in them. A challenge.

Okay, so he does know how much Jamie wants to eviscerate him.

Jamie can’t do that, obviously. But he could turn down his invitation. He could turn it down flat, alpha note of decision in his voice, and he knows there’s no way Tyler would challenge it. Jamie is Tyler’s captain and the closest thing he has to an alpha, and even if Tyler wants to go out with this guy, Jamie could make it so that they never see each other again.

And then he’d be making decisions for Tyler. Decisions he has no right to make. Decisions motivated entirely by his own jealousy.

He can feel the tension in his jaw when he answers. “Um, sure. Guess that could be fun.” He forces his eyes over, to where he’s afraid to look. “Tyler?”

He can’t tell what’s on Tyler’s face. He looks…wary, maybe, uncertain, but Jamie can’t tell if he’s uncertain of the guy or of Jamie’s reaction. He hates that he can’t tell.

Then Tyler does the thing he does sometimes, where all the tentative edges of his expression get smoothed over with a smile. “Yeah, of course,” he says, all sunny and bright, and that decides it.

Jamie doesn’t turn around to look at them as he and Tyler walk off. But he can feel the eyes of the other alpha on them, and it’s all he can do not to put his arm around Tyler and hold on tight.

***

He has to fight that same urge all through their flight to Columbus. He’s not sitting next to Tyler, fortunately, but he has to sit on his hands to keep from getting up and going over and just…running his hands all over Tyler. Scent-marking his hair. Laying his claim.

_Not your claim to make,_ he tells himself over and over, a mantra. _Not your claim to make._

Except…the unfinished question from before keeps niggling at him. He’s always assumed there were things about him Tyler knew. But if Tyler didn’t know that girl in the park was an omega…

What if it’s not that Tyler doesn’t want him? What if he just doesn’t have all the information?

It’s the kind of stupid hope that he would never be able to say out loud to someone else. But that doesn’t keep him from going over to Tyler when they’re in the locker room before the game.

“Hey, sorry if I kind of forced you into that thing tomorrow,” Jamie says. He’s aiming for casual but probably missing it by a mile. “If you don’t want to, or whatever, you shouldn’t feel like you have to.”

Tyler casts a glance at him, and Jamie’s stomach tightens. He’s half-expecting Tyler to call him on his real motivations, but Tyler just says, “No, I’m okay with it.”

“Oh.” Right. No reason for Jamie to feel so disappointed about that. It’s pretty much what he already knew. Except…except, except… “You, uh.” God, he shouldn’t ask this. He should give up on this stupid hope. But he knows he won’t be able to until he asks. “You know I’m an alpha, right?”

He’s been trying to tell himself all day that there’s nothing riding on this. That obviously Tyler knows—and even if he doesn’t know, he’s probably not one of those wolves who think your dynamic is everything, anyway. Jamie’s not hoping for anything, here. But obviously that’s a total lie, because his heart sinks down to his skates when Tyler just narrows his eyes and says, “What? Yeah, of course.”

“Oh.” Of course. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t change anything. “Sorry, I just—because of the smell thing. Wanted to make sure you knew.”

He’s babbling now. He shuts up, feeling his cheeks heat.

“I did.” Tyler sounds wary.

Jamie doesn’t blame him. He told himself he was going to stop dumping his weird all over Tyler. “Okay.” Time to stop making a fool out of himself. “I’m…gonna go put on the rest of my gear.”

“Right,” Tyler says. He’s probably super weirded out now. Jamie just hopes he doesn’t start avoiding him again—not that Jamie doesn’t deserve it. He just…

Ugh. He is so twisted into knots over this. He catches Jordie’s eye as he goes back to his gear and looks down quickly.

***

Tyler doesn’t avoid him, as it turns out. He does the opposite: he sits next to him on the plane ride back from Columbus.

It’s like a gift Jamie wasn’t looking for. Tyler’s walking down the aisle, and Jamie’s prepared to spend another flight wanting, and then Tyler just sits down. Right there, next to him.

It takes everything Jamie has not to smile ridiculously wide. Instead he offers Tyler one of his earbuds, and maybe it’s sneaky because it means Tyler will lean close to watch Jamie’s iPad screen, but hey, it’s only hurting Jamie. He’s the only one who suffers from how good Tyler smells, from how warm he is against his arm, from the little sighing noises he makes when Gale grabs Katniss and kisses her.

Tyler falls asleep on his shoulder.

Jamie’s afraid to move. Tyler’s head is nestled against Jamie’s shoulder and the seat back, his hair just brushing the spot where Jamie’s shirt ends and his neck begins. His breath is whiffling through his nose. He smells so drowsy and contented in his sleep, and Jamie breathes him in like a drug. He feels a strange combination of peaceful and desperate: this fragile quiet with Tyler leaning on his shoulder is so good, and it might be the most he’ll ever have. It might even be the last he’ll ever have, if Tyler gets together with that alpha.

He wants to stretch out his fingers and lace them with Tyler’s. He wants to lower his head and kiss Tyler’s forehead. He wants so many things.

Tyler stays asleep until the plane lands. Jamie thinks he should probably look away—should pretend he hasn’t been watching him sleep—but Tyler’s eyes blink slowly open, lashes dragging up so sweetly Jamie can’t help but look.

Then Tyler’s eyes widen and he pulls back a little. “Shit, sorry,” he says.

The reaction makes Jamie’s stomach clench: that Tyler’s apologizing for such a normal kind of pack contact. Like he’s already on his way out. He tries to keep his face non-threatening, smile in place; it’s not hard, when Tyler’s next to him blinking sleep out of his eyes. “No, it’s—it’s fine,” he says, but Tyler’s already pulling away.


	6. Chapter 6

One of the side effects of being in the NHL is that Jamie’s rarely in the same room with another alpha he _doesn’t_ get to physically attack.

Right now, he would pay a lot for a set of boards he could smash this guy into—Matt, this alpha who’s leaning towards Tyler with an interested gleam in his eye. Jamie would love to body check him, drop the gloves, teach him a lesson about staying away from Jamie’s people.

He has a feeling Tyler wouldn’t appreciate that. Neither would the restaurant staff, probably.

Jamie tears his eyes off Matt and looks back at Allison, the omega who’s supposed to be his date right now. Jamie’s not stupid: he knows that she and Matt asked them out with the goal of something happening here. He even admires her a little for making the suggestion in the first place, for not being so caught up in alpha/omega tradition that she needed him to make the first move. But that doesn’t mean he can make himself be interested in her.

“It was so crazy that we ran into you in the park,” she’s saying as they wait for their appetizers. “I mean, you’re basically our heroes.”

“Really?” Jamie says, distracted by this despite himself. He knows he’s pretty high-profile, but hero is more extreme than what he usually hears.

“Wolves who are out on an NHL team and not ashamed of it?” She shakes her head, laughing a little. “I get that Tyler’s more private about it, and that’s fine, but you and your brother, I can’t tell you what a difference that’s made to some of us. We don’t get many public figures to look up to, especially not down here.”

“Huh.” Jamie’s never thought of it that way. Like, he knew he was doing a good thing by being openly a wolf, but he never expected to meet someone it had actually made a difference for. “That’s…pretty cool to hear, actually,” he says. “Are you…” And then he cuts off, eyes snapping to the side, because Tyler’s scent has gone sour.

Tyler doesn’t look great, when Jamie turns. Taken aback, maybe, which is rare on Tyler—he’s the master of the public face—and at a loss for words, which almost never happens.

“Hey.” Jamie puts his hand on Tyler’s shoulder. “You okay?”

The way Tyler’s face instantly melts into a smile is relieving. “Yeah, we’re good,” he says. “We were just talking about, uh, Dallas.”

“Oh yeah, it’s a great city,” Jamie says, while he tries to figure out what’s really going on. Then he feels dumb, like maybe he was speaking for Tyler, so he says, “I mean, you like it here, right?”

But Tyler just snorts at him. “Yeah, of course,” he says, and Jamie doesn’t think he’s imagining the softness in his eyes. It makes him absurdly pleased.

It also makes him leave his hand on Tyler’s shoulder longer than necessary. He can’t seem to get out of this pattern: a step forward for every step he tries to take back.

Matt meets his eyes from across the table and smirks a little. Jamie feels his cheeks heat and turns back to Allison.

By the end of the meal, he can report on the number of times Tyler’s leg started jiggling under the table and the number of times Jamie wanted to reach over and touch it but didn’t. As for Allison’s job or interests or other brothers and sisters, he has no idea.

“I’ll get the check,” Matt says, and Jamie puts his hand on the folio a split second ahead of him.

There’s a silence around the table as the two alphas stare at each other. Jamie knows it’s outdated, this kind of alpha posturing—knows he should back down, be gracious to this guy who’s never actually done anything bad to him. But he’s been chatting up Tyler all night and Jamie can’t find the words to let him off the hook.

“We could split it,” Matt says, and when Jamie puts down his credit card it feels like defeat.

The one good thing here is that Tyler doesn’t seem too interested in Matt. Jamie hasn’t been able to watch him as closely as he’d like—and honestly, watching him as closely as he’d like would mean being incredibly creepy, most of the time—but Tyler doesn’t seem to be flirting, really. Isn’t showing his throat or smelling like desire or touching Matt on the arm. It’s the only thing that makes it bearable for Jamie to sit in a stuffy cab with Allison’s scent filling his nose and Tyler too far away to touch.

Maybe Tyler isn’t very interested in dating. Maybe Jamie won’t have to do this again.

It would probably be better for Jamie’s long-term mental health if Tyler did start seeing someone. Then Jamie might actually get the message and stop thinking Tyler is his to protect or whatever. But Jamie’s weak, and he’s selfish, and all he can think is that he wants it to go back to the way it was. Back to when they were friends and Jamie wasn’t getting what he wanted but at least he had Tyler’s attention and affection and his sleep-slurred voice whispering things across hotel-room pillows.

They get to the club, and a wall of sound and scent smacks into their faces.

Jamie hasn’t been around this many wolves since he was in Victoria. He remembers loving it then, the feeling of community and belonging, but right now it’s making his shoulders rise. He wants to step in front of Tyler and block him from the rest of the room.

Someone jostles Tyler, and he stumbles back into Jamie's chest. Jamie shouldn’t do it, definitely shouldn’t, but he slides a hand onto Tyler’s hip. His skin is hot through his jeans. “You okay here?” he shouts in Tyler’s ear.

“Sure,” Tyler says, but he doesn’t quite smell okay, and he pushes into Jamie’s touch a little. For a second Jamie lets himself imagine it meaning something entirely different: that they came to this club together, that maybe they’re dating and decided they wanted to come out and get to know the wolf culture in Dallas. That they’ll stick to each other’s sides all night, both a little intimidated but making each other brave, and when they go home, it’ll be with each other and no one else and Jamie will get to curl up around Tyler and sleep.

Then the moment is gone, and they’re off to a table with their actual dates.

Matt goes to get drinks, and once he’s gone, Jamie lets himself do what he’s been tempted to this whole time: he puts his body between Tyler and the room. He knows it will probably offend Allison, but he can’t help it—Tyler smells so anxious. He’s smelled a little anxious all night, but it’s stronger here in the club than it was in the restaurant. Jamie tries to be subtle about angling his body to block him, but there’s a wave of relief from Tyler, and that makes it worth any offense he might be causing Allison.

If she’s offended, she doesn’t show it. Jamie can’t smell her emotions like he can Tyler’s—he’s never met anyone else whose scent is so expressive—but she grins at him and leans in. “So, you wanna dance?”

He really does like this girl’s sense of initiative. It’s unfortunate the question fills him with panic. “Oh,” he says, and darts his eyes toward Tyler. “I mean, I would, but I don’t know if we should leave Tyler.”

It’s pretty obvious that Tyler doesn’t want to be left. But curse him and his ability to put a good face on things, because he smiles right away, broad and cheerful. “Go for it,” he says, and there’s nothing Jamie can say to that.

He feels like—like he’s sending Tyler out on a shift all by himself, not wearing any pads. He feels like he’s watching an opposing D-man skate towards him and not doing anything to divert the hit. He feels like something in his own stomach is open and unguarded and about to be hurt. But there’s nothing he can say.

It’s not a big deal, Jamie reminds himself as he leads Allison to the floor. Tyler’s a grownup. He’s been in clubs before—maybe not quite this wolfy a club, but it’s not like anything is actually going to happen to him. Matt will be back in a minute or two, anyway.

Something dark and possessive rises in Jamie at that last thought, but he pushes it down. He’s supposed to be dancing with Allison.

It’s never been a particular challenge for Jamie to dance with people he isn’t into. He’s not the most graceful, but he’s not horribly uncomfortable with the proximity or anything. He’s done it this year, even, a few times when the team has gone out. But right now it’s physically difficult for him to be so close to Allison. He puts his hands on her hips and she leans her head against his chest and they sway a little and he has to keep instructing his muscles to relax so that he doesn’t push her away.

She pulls back and smiles up at him. He makes something resembling a grin at her and manages to last a good five seconds before his eyes cut over to Tyler.

Matt is standing at Tyler’s table. Jamie’s stomach flips over. He has to take a deep breath and remind himself of what should be deeply ingrained knowledge by now: that Tyler doesn’t want him. That he’s not Jamie’s to claim. That even if Tyler isn’t interested in this guy right now, Jamie still won’t have a chance with him. Jamie will never have a chance with him. He needs to…he needs to move on.

Tyler and Matt are holding hands.

Jamie digs his fingers into Allison’s hips a little, not enough to hurt her, just enough to keep himself anchored. It’s hard to breathe all of a sudden. It doesn’t change anything—just like he was telling himself—so it really shouldn’t hurt like this. It shouldn’t feel like it’s digging up under his ribcage.

“So, not just teammates, huh?” Allison asks.

Jamie blinks at her. Her head is leaning against his shoulder, and for a second he thinks he might have misheard. But she’s looking up at him with resignation on her face, and panic bites at his chest.

“No,” he says. “No, we are. It’s just…” He’s not even sure what he’s trying to say here, but it doesn’t matter, because his throat is tightening and he can’t get any more words out anyway.

“It’s okay.” She gives a half-strangled laugh. “I mean, it’s not like I really thought I had a chance here.”

“I didn’t mean to…” Again, Jamie has no idea what he’s planning to say for the rest of that sentence. He knows rejection is particularly bad for an omega when it’s from an alpha, but there’s not a lot he can do here to make it better. He probably could have paid more attention to her earlier, but—well, no, honestly, he probably couldn’t have.

She’s smiling a little, but it’s rueful. “Should I tell my brother he’s wasting his time?”

She’s looking over his shoulder. Jamie spins around—spins her around with him—and there are Tyler and Matt, dancing. Matt’s hands are on Tyler’s waist and Tyler’s hands are around his neck.

They’re standing so close. There’s no air left in the club.

“Yeah.” Allison’s hands slide off his shoulders. “Okay, I get the message.”

“No, wait!” Jamie’s so out of it he almost grabs her to stop her, but he holds back just in time. Never lay hands on an omega. He puts a hand in front of her instead, draws it back before it would actually stop her, but it gets her attention. She looks back at him, skeptical. “Tyler’s not, um.” Jamie swallows. His pulse is thundering in his ears. “We’re not. I mean. It’s just me.”

Something changes in her face. The tension around her eyes dissolves, and her mouth drops open. “Oh,” she says.

Now he feels like he’s stripped off his clothing in front of her. “It’s not like…” he says, even though it is. It definitely is.

“I’m…sorry,” she says.

She sounds about as uncomfortable as Jamie feels. “It’s. Uh, yeah. Thanks.”

“So.” She gives a little laugh. “Do we keep dancing, or do we go to the table and pretend one of us twisted an ankle or something?”

Jamie swallows. The second thing is tempting. But he’s not quite that pathetic. And—and Tyler is still on the dance floor.

Not the best reason, maybe. But: “I guess we keep dancing,” he says.

It’s easier to put his hands on Allison’s hips this time. Easier, when there’s no pressure to make anything happen. Not easier to keep his eyes off Tyler, though. And…not really easier to look, either.

He and Matt are grinding. Jamie’s seen Tyler grinding with people in clubs before, girls, but it’s always been a little jokey, good-natured. Like he and his partner are both playing at it. This is…Matt’s flush against Tyler, hips moving in a slow roll. He’s leaning in towards Tyler, murmuring words against his cheek. Tyler’s not being goofy.

Jamie can smell him. Tyler. It seems impossible, in this crowd of wolves, but there are only a few people in between them. Or maybe it’s just that Tyler’s scent is so familiar to him by now. There are dozens of other omegas in the room—one of them directly in front of him—but their scents barely register in comparison to Tyler’s.

He smells strange. Not quite anxious, but maybe—uncomfortable? Jamie’s staring at him over Allison’s head, trying to figure it out, when Tyler turns and meets his gaze. There’s a plea in his eyes, and for a long moment Jamie can’t tell what he’s asking. Then he figures it out and goes cold.

Matt isn’t the one making him uncomfortable. Jamie is. By staring; by standing between him and the freedom to date whoever he wants. By being in love with him.

It hurts to look away. It feels like he’s acknowledging himself as the problem. But Jamie does it. He does it.

“Are you…” Allison asks, or something like that. It’s hard to hear her over the noise of the club and the rushing in Jamie’s ears.

“I’m fine,” he lies. “I think we should—” And he’s going to steer them off the dance floor, give Tyler his space, but just then the bottom drops out of Tyler’s scent.

It goes _bad._ It’s still noticeably Tyler, but nothing like Jamie's ever smelled from him before. It’s like his scent has mixed with something black and rotting, the sludge that’s three months old in the back of the fridge, so foul it makes Jamie want to throw up.

He whirls back around and sees Matt and Tyler, still tangled up together. Matt’s teeth are in Tyler’s neck—so intimate it makes Jamie flinch—but Tyler doesn’t look like someone being seduced. He’s rigid, like he’d rather be anywhere else, but he’s not moving, like he can’t even—

“Hell fucking no,” Jamie bellows, the words coming out before he can even think about them, and then his hands are on Tyler, pulling him away. Tyler’s body is terrifyingly limp. Jamie tucks him against his chest.

“Hey—” Matt says, like he has a right to be outraged, and Jamie would punch him if his hands weren’t busy holding Tyler.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, man?” he shouts. “Can’t you recognize fucking involuntary thrall?”

Matt’s face goes into an exaggerated expression of guilt and surprise. “Oh, is _that—_ ”

“I should have you fucking arrested,” Jamie says. People are staring, and he’s shaking a little with the force of holding back the desire to smash this guy into the floor.

Tyler’s clinging to him, though, pressed into his chest, and that’s more important. “It’s okay,” Jamie says close to Tyler’s ear. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.” Tyler nuzzles into his chest, and it breaks Jamie’s heart a little.

Jamie tightens his arms and looks up to see Matt looking belligerent and uncertain, like he’s not sure if they’re going to fight. “You’re not worth it right now,” Jamie said, voice barely steady through his anger, and he gets Tyler the fuck off that dance floor.

The trip outside isn’t easy. Tyler is lax, not really moving on his own, and he’s still clinging to Jamie’s chest like he’s trying to burrow inside. Jamie has to get his arms under Tyler’s and half-carry him through the crowd of curious wolves, all of whom can probably smell the submission on Tyler right now. Jamie throws more than a few glares before they get outside.

The cooler air seems to wake Tyler up a little, like Jamie was hoping it would. It still takes a minute of Jamie shaking his arms and saying his name before Tyler blinks his eyes open, though.

He still smells wrong. It’s not the rotten-death smell that hit in the club, but it’s disturbing, sickly sweet, like if Jamie breathes in too much of it it will put him to sleep, like the poppies in _The Wizard of Oz._ The sweetness mingles with the anxiety in Jamie’s stomach and makes him want to throw up.

“Tyler,” he says, and Tyler blinks up at him, eyelids rising slowly. It’s a horrible parody of what Jamie saw when Tyler woke up next to him on the plane yesterday, of what he wants to see every morning for the rest of his life. “Tyler, did he hurt you?”

Tyler just looks up at him. He looks so young like this. He doesn’t look distressed, doesn’t look hurt, but right now, Jamie’s not sure if he’d even know.

Involuntary thrall is rare. Rare enough that Jamie’s never seen it before. He remembers the lessons, though: the elders in Victoria getting the kids together and teaching them the signs. How to avoid it, by giving an omega space and comfort and agency in a high-pressure situation. How not to cause it in the first place by not being an alpha dirtball who pushes past the point of distress.

Jamie’s gritting his teeth again. Tyler’s probably okay; Jamie remembers one old omega telling them how it happened to her once, when she was attacked by an alpha. She said it probably saved her life by keeping her from fighting back. She never wanted to go through it again, though.

Jamie brushes his fingers over Tyler’s neck, where Matt’s teeth were grazing the skin, and it makes Tyler shiver—but not in pain, Jamie thinks. No, Tyler’s eyes flutter shut, and he lolls a little closer to Jamie, and his scent shades into—into arousal.

Jamie’s own response is sudden and intense. The heat that rolls through his body is like wildfire. He wants to protect Tyler, and his body is telling him that the best way to do that is to claim him—to bundle him close and kiss him and open him up and make it so that no one else has any claim over him, ever. It’s shocking and horrifying and so strong that he has to stand there for a second and let it just roar through him.

“Fuck,” he says, when he trusts himself to speak. He breathes out and leans his forehead against Tyler’s. “You’re really deep into it, aren’t you?”

Tyler’s response is to nuzzle closer and slide his lips against Jamie’s jawline. It feels like he’s sending up sparks—like Jamie should be able to see the yellow spray in the air.

“Tyler,” he says as Tyler’s lips slip down to his neck. He hates the way his voice sounds helpless. His breath is coming shallow, and his blood is pumping hot, and his arms are full of warm affectionate Tyler. “You’ve got to snap out of it. It’s involuntary thrall, okay? It happens sometimes, when an alpha isn’t careful—but you have to shake it off. You don’t want this. I know you don’t.”

He tries to remember if they learned how to break involuntary thrall after it happens. Time? Space? It’s hard to think with Tyler close like this, pressed up against him.

Tyler’s lips are still on Jamie’s skin. They’re moving. “I…want,” he says, voice slow and deep, and _fuck._

He smells so good now. Still with that sickly drugged scent, but the sweet hot arousal is coming through underneath, and—and Jamie’s smelled that on him, lots of times, but never when Tyler was this close. Never when Tyler’s _stayed_ this close, and if Jamie could believe that Tyler actually wanted it—

“Jamie,” Tyler says, and there’s his tongue suckling at Jamie’s jaw, and Jamie’s going to die of wanting.

“But,” Jamie says, grasping desperately after coherency, “you wouldn’t if—” Tyler’s tongue slides against a hint of stubble, and Jamie’s mouth drops open. “Okay, fuck, this needs to stop.”

He gets his hands onto Tyler’s shoulders and pushes him a foot or so away. It’s all he can bring himself to do. Tyler’s shoulders slump, and his scent dives down into sadness, and Jamie has to fight not to haul him back in. His body is screaming at him to do it, to make Tyler smell good again, but that’s not how this works. It wouldn’t be protecting Tyler, not really. It would be hurting him as badly as Matt would have hurt him inside the club.

Fuck. Okay. They need to get out of here. Jamie doesn’t know what happened to Matt or Allison, but it would be impossible to overstate the extent to which he does not care. He needs to get Tyler to a cab.

The ride back to their building is the worst mockery of everything Jamie’s wanted this whole year. He has Tyler nestled under his arm, smelling happy and warm and not pulling away. Rubbing his face against Jamie’s shoulder and making these little noises, little happy hums, that burrow down into Jamie’s gut and make him want to hear them forever.

“That’s it,” he says to Tyler. “You’re doing so good. We’re just gonna get you home, okay?”

“Mm,” Tyler says, and sucks on Jamie’s skin.

It sends shivers all through Jamie’s body, and he has to drop his head and breath through his mouth. “Fuck,” he says. “Not—not yet, okay?” He just needs to get Tyler inside. Where no cab drivers will take pictures of them and sell them to the press.

Fuck; Tyler’s going to be so embarrassed by this tomorrow.

Jamie slides his hand around Tyler’s head, fingers threading through his hair. That seems to distract him for a minute, but then Tyler turns his face and nuzzles Jamie’s palm. It’s so sweet that Jamie can’t quite bear it. This isn’t Tyler like he wants him—Tyler awake and aware and wanting him back—but it’s still Tyler, pressed close and terrifyingly turned on, and there’s a big part of Jamie that just wants—

“Thank God,” he says, when the cab stops in front of their building. It’s another ordeal to get Tyler out of it and pay the driver with Tyler’s six-foot-plus frame hanging off him, but Jamie does it.

“Just a little farther,” he says to Tyler, and Tyler presses into him and buries his nose in the crook of his neck and sighs. Jamie curses every god or demon that might have brought him here.

He helps Tyler into the building. He keeps an arm around his waist—he has to, with how heavily Tyler is leaning on him—and Tyler just keeps touching him. Just a little farther.

And then Tyler will never touch him like this again.

Jamie puts that thought out of his head and keeps going. That’s not important right now. Even if Tyler is too embarrassed to touch him ever again—that doesn’t matter. He just needs to think as far as the next moment, to getting Tyler inside and getting him safe.

Turns out he should have thought a little further, though, because as soon as the door is shut to Tyler’s apartment, Tyler plasters himself against Jamie and tilts his face up to be kissed.

Oh fuck. Jamie’s stomach swoops. Tyler’s lips are parted, and his eyes are closed, and Jamie knows that he would taste sweet, sweet, sweet. He’s wanted that taste for months. His mouth is so close to Tyler’s that he could almost do it without moving, could just—

“Tyler,” he says, breath stuttering out of him. He brings a hand up to cup Tyler’s cheek. “Tyler, baby, I’m so sorry.”

Tyler’s eyes open. They’re still clouded by the trance that Matt put him in, and he looks—bewildered. Confused. Like Jamie is letting him down.

Jamie skates a thumb over his cheekbone. “If this were a different night,” he says. “If you weren’t—if that guy hadn’t done that to you, and you knew what you were doing—I mean, fuck. If I thought you wanted it, even a little bit, I’d—”

He’s being too honest. He has to hope Tyler isn’t processing this, won’t remember it, because it’s one thing to know your teammate’s in love with you and another to hear the embarrassing details of it. But he guesses they’ll both be embarrassed about tonight.

He drops his forehead to Tyler’s shoulder and breathes him in for a minute. This is where he needs to step away. Let go of Tyler’s gorgeously scented body and accept that this will never happen the way he wants it to. But before he can, Tyler moves—creates a little space between them and slowly, deliberately, drops his head back to bare his throat.

Jamie practically swallows his tongue. Tyler shows throat all the time—in casual conversation, at restaurants, at the fucking rink, but there’s only one other time he’s seen it done so deliberately, and that was three days after they met, at the All-Star weekend, when Jamie was leading him back to his room. His long, white throat, brush of stubble at the top, all the tender delicate skin waiting for him.

That night, when Jamie tried to touch him, Tyler pulled away. Tonight, Tyler is hanging there, baring himself, practically begging for Jamie’s hands and tongue and teeth and—

“Fuck,” Jamie says. He’s gasping at superheated air. “I’m—I’m so sorry. But we can’t.”

And he sets his jaw and takes his hands off Tyler and steps away.

Tyler crumples to the floor. It’s what Jamie expected, but it kills him to see Tyler fall—limp, like his strings have been cut. Jamie can’t even imagine what being dropped like that will do to him after everything else he’s been through tonight. But it won’t be as bad as what would happen if Jamie kept touching him like he wants to.

Tyler’s folded with his knees against his chest, like he’s trying to protect a wound. An acrid smell is bursting in Jamie’s nose. “I’m so sorry,” Jamie says, though it seems useless when Tyler’s crumpled on the floor. “If I thought for one second that you actually wanted…”

There’s not much point in finishing that sentence. Tyler’s made it clear what he wants when he’s in his right mind. It would be unforgivable for Jamie to do what he wants to, to drop to the floor and wrap his arms around Tyler and hold him close and give him everything he asks for.

Jamie’s hands are shaking. He remembers the line of Tyler’s bare throat.

“I’ll send Jordie down to put you to bed,” he says. “That should be…safe.”

He tries to think of what else he should say. He’s just stalling at this point, though. He makes himself turn and head for the door.

Tyler speaks when Jamie’s almost there.

“If…if you thought…” Tyler says, and Jamie freezes.

Tyler doesn’t sound like he did under the thrall. He sounds…different. Clearer.

Jamie turns around. Tyler’s still on the floor, crumpled where he fell, but his eyes come up and meet Jamie’s. Clear. “If you thought I really wanted it, you’d—you’d say yes?”

Jamie can’t breathe. He watches as Tyler unfolds himself and climbs to his feet, all on his own. Shaky but strong. Holding Jamie’s gaze.

Being abandoned by an alpha—can that break involuntary thrall? Jamie’s never heard of that. But then, before tonight, he didn’t know much about involuntary thrall at all.

“You really…” Jamie manages to say, and then his words dry up. Tyler can’t mean what Jamie thinks he means. He’s made it so clear that he doesn’t want it. But maybe Jamie hasn’t understand anything at all, because Tyler’s looking back at him, eyes dark and intent and terrified. Beautiful.

“I do,” Tyler says, and the hope in Jamie’s chest crackles like fire. “I really—Jamie, fuck, I really do.”

Jamie stares at him for a moment longer. Then he strides across the space between them and pulls Tyler into a kiss.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be the end, but I ended up writing another, shorter chapter that will come after this. I just couldn't resist the conversation with Jordie. :D

Jamie’s imagined it so many times, what it might feel like to kiss Tyler like this. He never captured how much his whole body would be consumed by it—like a conflagration, like something Jamie can barely withstand. He kisses Tyler’s mouth and feels like he’s outside of his own body and in the heart of something wild.

Tyler’s hot in his arms, alive, grasping at Jamie just as much as Jamie’s grasping at him. Jamie licks into his red mouth and gets his teeth in his lip and tastes his tongue and presses his nose into his cheek. Tyler’s breath shudders against his skin. He’s perfect. Perfect. And Jamie gets to touch him, hold him, put his hands on him and…

Jamie gets him against the wall, and Tyler melts into it. He tips his head back, and Jamie’s mouth goes wet, because, fuck, his _neck._ It’s almost too good to taste. Jamie hovers over the delicate skin for a moment, quivering, and then he lowers his lips to it.

Tyler cries out. “Again,” he says, “like that—”

Jamie doesn’t need to be told. He can feel the shivers that run down Tyler’s body. His skin is thin and sweat-slick and blood-warm under Jamie’s mouth. Jamie wants to taste every bit of it, and so he does, making his way from one ear to the other and working them both into a frenzy until Tyler’s shaking under his hands. Jamie gets his teeth into his skin, just a graze, and Tyler bucks his hips up against Jamie. “Yes,” he hisses. “Yeah, that.”

The taste of him. The feel of him gasping for breath. Holy fuck, Jamie can’t handle this. He nips down the length of Tyler’s neck, gulping for air, and bites hard on the corner of Tyler’s neck and shoulder.

Tyler shouts. The sound goes straight to Jamie’s dick, and he meets Tyler in a thrust. “You like that, huh?” Jamie says. It’s driving him crazy, the flush that’s heating Tyler’s skin, how eager he is for it. “Yeah, I thought you would.”

“Jamie.” Tyler is boneless, quivering, writhing. They’re both panting harder than they ever have after a shift. Jamie presses his body up against Tyler’s as close as possible.

“I just,” he murmurs into Tyler’s ear as he tongues the skin beneath it, and he’s spouting nonsense, he’s going actually crazy with how badly he wants him. “I just want to eat you up,” he says, and Tyler gasps and bucks up, like he wants it, like he’s just as crazy for this as Jamie is.

Jamie gets lost in it a little then, even more than he was before: in the grind of their bodies together, in the little noises Tyler makes against his mouth as Jamie shoves their cocks together. Tyler smells so amazing like this: ripe and desperate, the scent of his slick rising to Jamie’s nose and making him dizzy. Jamie kisses him, chasing the scent, trying to eat it out of his mouth, and presses him hard against the wall, grinds, grinds like he can’t stop.

“Jamie,” Tyler says, and his voice is a broken thread, a plea. “You have to fuck me,” and _fuck._ Jamie gets his teeth in Tyler’s neck and grips hard. He never—in all his imaginings—never pictured Tyler so gorgeous, so desperate, so—

The weight of him feels perfect in Jamie’s arms as he carries him down the hall. Like this was what Jamie was made for: to carry Tyler into the bedroom, to make him fall apart.

Jamie can’t stop kissing him. He keeps thinking he should stop for a minute, just focus on getting them to the bedroom door, but then Tyler will breathe or moan or lick his lips or just—just _exist,_ and Jamie has to take his mouth again. Tyler kisses back, eager, his lips and tongue letting Jamie in. Jamie’s nose is pressed against Tyler’s cheek, and he breathes him in deeper than he’s ever gotten to before, the scents of lust and affection and longing and—and panic, sharp and cutting—

“Hey.” Jamie pulls back a couple of inches, feels Tyler’s breath shudder against his mouth. He keeps one hand on Tyler’s ass and slides the other one up to cradle the back of his neck. Wishes he had five other hands so he could hold Tyler the way he should be held. “You okay?”

Tyler tucks his head down, nods. He’s holding on tight, and Jamie can smell how much he wants this, but there are other things in there, too: a tremulous smell, something like fear. “Jamie,” he says, voice cracking.

“I got you,” Jamie says, and Tyler looks up at him, so Jamie kisses him. Soft, gentle, as sweet as he can make it. Tyler responds, turns it hungrier, but his scent still isn’t right. There’s still that note of something, bitter and frantic and tinged with sadness and Jamie doesn’t know where it’s coming from, but he would do anything to make it better, would hold Tyler closer or walk away or cut his own skin open if there was something inside him that would help.

He makes himself pull away from the wonder that is Tyler’s mouth before they get too distracted. Already his cock is throbbing under Tyler’s ass and the scent of Tyler’s fresh slick is making his head spin. “Do you still want?” he asks, keeping the ache of his cock as far out of his voice as possible. Tyler first, Tyler always. “We don’t have to, if you don’t.”

Tyler hitches himself closer, as much as he can when they’re already plastered together. “I want,” he says, scent swooping towards eagerness, and Jamie can’t help the lurch in his gut or the way he seizes Tyler’s mouth. Tyler kisses back like he means it.

“Thank fuck,” Jamie says between kisses. He’s getting lost in Tyler’s mouth again. They reach the bedroom and he gets to pull Tyler’s clothes _off_ of him and run his hands all over the warm skin that’s underneath. All of this skin Jamie’s been seeing across locker rooms and under the hems of shirts that ride up and late at night, in his mind, as he circled his hand around his own dick and wished—

It’s not hard to keep track of Tyler’s reactions. Jamie’s desperate for the way Tyler’s pressing into his touches, for the hot hungry smell of him as skin on skin revs him up. If there was hesitation in the hallway, it’s not there anymore in the way Tyler shivers as Jamie strokes up his abs. Jamie finds a nipple, and Tyler’s mouth drops open and his hips surge against Jamie’s.

“Jamie,” he says, and the wail in his voice is going to keep Jamie hard for days. “Please, I need—”

“Yeah,” Jamie says gratefully, and he closes his mouth on Tyler’s nipple and sucks. Not everyone Jamie’s been with has had such sensitive nipples, but—omega—and something primal in Jamie rejoices as Tyler’s hips buck and the smell of slick notches up.

Tyler’s pants. Jamie has to get them off. His hands are steady as he works the fly, but he almost swallows his own tongue when Tyler’s cock springs up, flushed and hard and dripping. “God, you’re gorgeous,” he whispers. He wants to taste it, wants to taste Tyler’s everything, but there are other things he wants first, and one of them is Tyler as close as possible. He can’t even take the time to take off his own clothes—just pulls Tyler towards him, feels him arch into the friction, takes his mouth and kisses the panting breath out of it.

Jamie’s hands are on Tyler’s lower back. He hasn’t touched Tyler’s ass yet, isn’t sure he’ll be able to control himself if he does, but he inches his fingers down, digs them into that lush muscle and thrills at the sound Tyler makes. He’s so close to Tyler’s hole, the hold that must be dripping by now, fuck, Tyler smells so wet—

Yeah. Yeah, Jamie’s wearing too many clothes.

He gets his shirt off, but it’s hard when Tyler’s moving against him like that. Tyler is the only thing in the world right now, the most important thing, always, and it’s hard to care about his own pants when Tyler’s flushed and gasping and rolling his hips, but if Tyler wants it—if he needs it—

“Need you,” Tyler whispers against Jamie’s mouth. “Don’t make me wait, Jamie, I’ve already—”

Jamie gets his pants off right away, gets his boxers off, and he can feel the difference in Tyler’s body when Tyler comes up against his naked cock. Tyler shudders and his eyes flutter shut and his whole body goes hotter under Jamie’s hands, and fuck, if Jamie doesn’t fuck him right away he’s going to die.

He’s distracted by shoving their cocks together, by the blinding pleasure of this, but he manages to back them up to the bed. And then it sort of hits him, like a splash of hot water, that they’re going to _do_ this, that he’s going to tip Tyler onto this bed and fuck him and _have_ him.

He pulls back a couple of inches and looks at Tyler’s face, just because—it doesn’t quite seem real yet, maybe, and he can feel himself breathing too fast. Tyler didn’t want him for so long. But Tyler looks back at him, looks into his eyes, and this is real. Tyler is real. Tyler is real and here with him and blinking like he’s been hit.

“Jamie,” he says, small, wondering, and Jamie takes his mouth and they fall.

Oh, fuck, having Tyler under him. He’s so eager and greedy and responsive, and Jamie’s horribly afraid he’s going to come just from the sounds Tyler is making as he bucks up against Jamie’s hips. “Bet you’re ready,” he hears himself say. “Can smell that you’re ready.” Tyler’s slick is the only thing he can smell now, that and Tyler’s sweat, but the slick is overpowering it, and Jamie can’t take it any longer.

“I’m so,” Tyler says, more air than voice. “Please. Just—”

Tyler’s ass is hot in his hand. Jamie fondles it for a moment, feels the ache in his own balls, and then slips a finger down Tyler’s crack and finds his hole.

It gapes under his fingertip right away, hot and hungry and absolutely dripping. Jamie’s never felt anything like it. “You—oh, fuck, you _really_ want this,” he gasps. He knew how it smelled but he didn’t think. Not like this. “I didn’t think you’d—”

“Yes, please, come on,” Tyler says, and Jamie wants to give him everything. His fingers, his cock, his life, just hand them over right now and not ask any questions. It’s a scary thought, too big for Jamie’s chest, and it makes him lift his eyes focus on Tyler’s face instead of his ass.

“Tyler,” he says. Tyler’s eyes wander to his, and they look dazed. Jamie could look at this forever. “You—you really want this?”

Tyler’s mouth opens a little bit. But his eyes clear, focus on Jamie, and Jamie can see the truth in his response. “Yeah,” he says, so quiet Jamie can barely hear him, and Jamie has to kiss him.

“Fuck, I need to be inside of you,” Jamie groans into the kiss, and he finds Tyler’s ass again and strokes a finger over that gaping bud and slips it inside his hole.

Oh holy mother of fuck. It’s just as wet as it seemed from the outside, opening so easily to him but so still tight around him, walls nubbly in important places and smooth elsewhere and Jamie has to take a breath through his teeth just to handle how good it feels around his finger. Having a part of him _inside Tyler._

Tyler squirms, whines, clenches down. There’s a plea in his whining, a plea for more, and Jamie says, “I know, baby, I know.” He runs a hand over Tyler’s stomach, as if that will make up for it not being Jamie’s cock. Hell, Jamie would rather it were Jamie’s cock. He could just plunge in right now, not worry about—but no. “Gonna take care of you. Just have to, first—”

He slips in a second finger, and he can tell it’s still not enough for Tyler. It’s exhilarating and painful at once, knowing that Tyler wants him so much, knowing that he’s delaying giving himself to him, even for a second. He strokes over Tyler’s prostate in apology, and that makes Tyler hiss and writhe and Jamie’s cock leap. He takes an unsteady breath and puts in a third finger.

It’s so easy. “I—God, you’re so open already.” Jamie feels like he’s drunk, like he’s drugged, staring at his three fingers sliding into Tyler’s ass. His heart is beating so hard he thinks he might pass out. “I’m just gonna—”

“Yes, _please,_ ” Tyler says, and fuck, they’re gonna need a condom.

Jamie has one in his pocket. Always does when he goes out, even if he’s not anticipating anything happening, and he’s never been as grateful as he is right now as he fumbles for his pants. He can practically feel Tyler’s desperation back on the bed, is dying from the knowledge that he’s left him untouched and empty, and his hand closes around the condom like it’s a lifeline.

He turns back around to the bed, and Tyler’s just—

He’s the best thing Jamie’s ever seen. “Fuck, you’re amazing,” he breathes, strokes a hand down Tyler’s cheek. Leans over to kiss him.

It’s not a sweet kiss. They’re both too worked up for that. Tyler is whining and squirming below him, and Jamie’s climbing over him without breaking the kiss, trying to roll a condom on with trembling hands. He feels like he’s cross-eyed as he pictures where his cock will be going. 

He pulls back from the kiss, whispers, “I’m just gonna,” and then his cock is pushing into Tyler’s body.

That first slide just about takes the top of his head off. He can barely see for a moment. Underneath him, Tyler cries out, but it’s a good cry: Jamie can hear that it’s good, can smell it, can feel it in the slick clench of Tyler’s ass around his cock. “Wow, Tyler,” he says, and they lock eyes, and Jamie sees everything reflected back to him in Tyler’s gaze. The hugeness of this, the pleasure, the need for something to hold onto.

“Yeah,” Tyler whispers, and Jamie starts to move.

It’s even better, moving. Tyler’s ass is so tight, and when Jamie finds his prostate he clenches down extra hard, so that Jamie feels like he’s punching through white heat every time he thrusts. “Fuck, you’re gonna make me,” he says, gasping for air, and he can see just a hint of smugness in Tyler’s face and it is the hottest thing ever.

He gets Tyler’s hands above his head and holds them there as he thrusts, and oh, that’s a scent, there. A little bit of the drugged smell from Tyler’s haze earlier, but better, fresher, and Tyler’s working himself on his cock so much that Jamie can’t even wonder if it’s good for him. They’re working together as one, both of them shaking out of their skins as they roll together urgently.

“I—never thought—this would happen,” Jamie hears himself saying, doesn’t remember deciding to say it, but the wonder is so sharp. Just a couple of hours he thought he was going to lose Tyler forever, and now there’s nothing between them. Nothing but skin, but sweat, but heat and oh, the way that heat is spreading up through Jamie’s belly…

Tyler digs his heels into Jamie’s back and wails, “Jamie,” and—oh. Oh no.

Jamie’s never felt this before, but he recognizes it as soon as he feels it. The new heat in his balls. His body recognizing something Jamie’s felt for months now, wanting to act on it, wanting to thicken the base of his cock and—

“Oh, fuck,” he says. “Oh, fuck, Tyler, I think I’m gonna—”

He could still stop now. Pull out and jerk off over Tyler’s chest. But—but he doesn’t _want_ to. It feels like it would be wrong to stop now, like it would mean breaking this thing between them. But he can’t just…

“Is it okay,” Jamie gasps, barely able to keep thrusting while holding back on what’s about to happen. “Is it okay if—”

“Yeah,” Tyler says. “Anything, everything,” and it’s that word, that promise, that breaks Jamie open. He loses control and fucking _growls_ and feels the base of his dick start to swell as it shoves inside.

Tyler feels it right away—Jamie can tell from the spike in his scent, the leap in his heart beat. He clenches down around the knot, and Jamie grinds in, can’t pull out anymore, but grinds in hard enough that it should be hitting Tyler’s prostate, it must be, because Tyler’s whole body does a rippling roll and he cries out and then he’s coming, spurting up his chest and convulsing around Jamie.

Jamie can’t possible hold off in the face of that. He feels himself slip over the edge, the world blurring as his cock spasms— _coming inside Tyler,_ he thinks to himself, even though there’s a condom there and none of the come will fill Tyler at all. But Jamie feels like it is anyway, is overwhelmed by the sense of filling Tyler up and making him his and making it so they can never, ever be separated again, and—

The orgasm goes on a long time. When it breaks, Tyler’s looking up at him with dazed amazement, and Jamie has to fight to keep himself from falling on top of him.

It’s automatic to pull Tyler into his arms. He doesn’t want to put too much weight on him, but he wants to hold Tyler as close as possible. Wants to hold him closer than possible, really. Wants to tuck him inside his rib cage and keep him there.

Tyler’s panting against his cheek. Jamie kisses his mouth, is acutely conscious of those two places of connection: his cock nestled in Tyler’s ass, and his tongue slipping between his lips. “That was amazing,” he says, pulling back and resting their foreheads together.

Tyler slips his hand into Jamie’s and holds on tight. Jamie lets himself float in this feeling. He’s heard a lot about what it’s like for an omega to have a knot in their ass—people use all kinds of crazy words for it, like _transcendent_ and _life-changing_ and _complete._ Jamie always thought maybe they were exaggerating. But if Tyler feels even a fraction of what Jamie does right now…

“Are you comfortable?” Jamie whispers. He can’t seem to stop touching Tyler. He laces their fingers together, rubs his nose against the high arch of Tyler’s cheekbone. “It’ll probably take at least fifteen minutes to come down. I’m not sure; I’ve never knotted anyone before.”

That’s probably obvious. Most alphas don’t knot more than one person in their lifetime. But it makes him feel all fluttery to say it. To reference the throbbing knot that connects them.

“Yeah, I’m super good,” Tyler says, and Jamie believes him—he smells too contented for it to be a lie—but rolls them on their sides anyway so that it won’t be a strain on Tyler’s hips. Tyler cuddles sleepily against him.

His face, so close. Jamie traces the lines smooth skin and rough beard and swollen lips. Sometimes Tyler’s tongue darts out to lick his fingertip, and Jamie loves that. The tiny intimacy.

He loves all of this, really. Loves—

It feels too soon when his cock starts to go down. Not that it’s really a problem—he’s pretty sure he’ll be knotting Tyler again soon—but it’s sad, the idea of their first time being over.

Tyler must feel it too, because his scent spikes with alarm and his heart starts going crazy.

“Sh, sh,” Jamie says. It’s not like he’s going to stop cuddling Tyler or leave him cold and alone just because his cock isn’t stuck in his ass anymore. He tries to tell him that with his body: pulls him in closer, comforts him with his hands and arms and legs. It feels amazing, to be able to comfort him after so long.

Every time he opens his eyes, Tyler is still there.

“I just—I can’t even believe how good that was,” he whispers into Tyler’s hair.

Tyler shifts a little closer. It sparks warmth in Jamie’s chest—Tyler chasing comfort in his arms. Tyler snuggling into him.

This would have been so impossible to imagine yesterday. Jamie’s whole body feels new. His whole world. Tyler is _in his arms._

“I can’t believe it was you,” Jamie says. He feels like he’s saying too much, but that doesn’t matter anymore. Not when his body is still buzzing from Tyler’s touch and Tyler is cuddled against his chest. “I, you know, I always knew I’d do this with someone someday, figured it would be good. But to have it be _you._ ”

He wants to pour onto Tyler this bright feeling in his chest. Hopes he doesn’t need to because Tyler is feeling it too.

“It was even better than I ever thought,” Jamie whispers, and he feels sliced open, like Tyler could reject him and run out of there, but Tyler just sighs against his chest. Jamie can feel his pulse, his breathing. Feels almost like Tyler is a part of him.

God, if what they say is true…soon, maybe he won’t be exaggerating when he says that. They knotted. Tyler is his.

“I’m just so glad you didn’t want to hold off on mating,” Jamie says, and he feels the jerk when Tyler stiffens against him.

He pulls back right away. They might not be bonded yet—not fully, anyway—but he’d have to be paying way less attention not to notice the way Tyler’s gone tense. “Tyler? You okay?”

Tyler looks so confused. “I just…” he trails off. “Mating?”

“Well, yeah, I mean, I know knotting doesn’t always lead to bonding, but.” Jamie ducks his head, can’t help the way the corners of his mouth tug up. “Well, it’s you, so.”

Tyler doesn’t really react to that, and that more than anything sends a red flag up in Jamie’s brain. Tyler loves praise. Affection. Gobbles it up. Jamie studies his face, tries to read what he’s thinking, but he can’t see anything besides the confusion. “I don’t,” Tyler says, sounding more lost than ever. “I thought…mating was a wolf thing.”

“Well, yeah.” There’s no good reason for the anxiety romping its way through Jamie’s blood. Tyler’s just asking questions. That doesn’t mean he regrets what they did. “I guess there are exceptions, like Kaner and Tazer, so, um, not always? But mostly, yeah.”

“But you.” Tyler shakes his head. “You wanted to mate with a wolf.”

“Yeah.” Jamie studies Tyler’s face, tries to figure out what’s going on here.

It’s nothing good. He hears Tyler’s heart speed up, smells his anxiety. “Did you just, um. Change your mind?” Tyler asks.

“Of course not.” Jamie can’t imagine changing his mind about this.

Instead of melting back into his arms, though, Tyler pulls out of them, face gone tight. “Oh. Okay.”

“No, I mean.” This isn’t how this is supposed to be going. Fuck, Jamie must be saying things wrong somehow. “I wanted to mate with you.”

“But—” Tyler’s starting to breathe hard, his eyes suspiciously liquid. “Right, so—”

Jamie doesn’t know how he’s fucking this up so badly. “Tyler,” he says, trying to sound as reassuring as possible. He reaches out and takes Tyler’s face in his hands, makes sure he’s paying attention so that he can’t possibly miss what Jamie’s saying. “I meant it,” he says. Slow, deliberate. “I wanted to mate with a wolf. I wanted to mate with you.”

Tyler’s face doesn’t something weird. He laughs, like Jamie’s trying to be funny, and then his expression twists, fear and—

He scrambles away from Jamie, and Jamie feels the distance like freezing water. “Jamie,” he says. His chest is heaving like he’s panicked. “Jamie. You know I’m not, right?”

Not—what? Not in love with Jamie? Jamie’s heart is beating in a weird constricted way. “What do you mean?”

“Not a wolf,” Tyler says, and—

Jamie almost laughs. He only doesn’t because Tyler smells so panicky. “What are you talking about?”

“No,” Tyler says. “I’m so sorry, Jamie, really. But I’m not. I’m really, really not—”

Jamie reaches out automatically, the instinct to calm Tyler stronger than the weirdness of what he’s saying. But Tyler flinches away from his hand. “Tyler,” Jamie says. He’s not sure he’s really hearing what he’s hearing because it doesn’t make any sense. “Are you—are you joking? Or—”

He could be lying, but there’s no reason to lie to Jamie. Unless he’s also lying to himself. Jamie’s heard of wolves like that, who are in denial about being anything other than human. But Tyler spends so much time with Jamie and Jordie. None of it makes sense.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry.” Tyler’s body is so tight Jamie’s in vicarious physical pain. “I didn’t mean to, like, lead you on, or whatever. I—”

“Hey. Look at me,” Jamie says. Tyler does, and his eyes look anguished.

He couldn’t actually not know. Could he?

Jamie’s always hated it when Tyler was in pain, and it’s so much worse now that his body remembers what it’s like to hold him and kiss him and make him fall apart. He has to force himself to drop his hand before he pulls him close again. “I’m not really sure what’s going on,” he says. “But, um, you’re definitely a wolf.”

It feels stupid to even say it. It’s like telling Tyler he’s a hockey player, or Canadian, or living on the planet Earth. But: “I’m not, though,” Tyler says.

He sounds so unhappy about it. Like he wishes it weren’t true. Not like he’s lying to himself about it. Jamie doesn’t understand at all. “Have you never shifted?” Jamie asks. And then, in case that wasn’t clear enough in a conversation in which nothing’s clear at all: “Never turned into a wolf?”

Tyler shakes his head. He looks lost. Scared. And maybe there’s something else going on here, but…if Jamie’s going to trust Tyler with his body, with his everything, he has to trust him that he’s telling the truth about this. That he’s saying what he actually thinks.

“I don’t know…how you wouldn’t know,” Jamie says carefully. He wants to be touching Tyler, but that wouldn’t be welcomed right now, so he just leaves his hands in his lap, open. “But, look, I can promise you that I’m not wrong about this. It’s—the smell alone, there’s no way to doubt it. I could bring Jordie down here, and he’d say the same thing. You are a wolf. You’re an omega wolf.”

Tyler stares at him, and Jamie looks back at him steadily. He tries to look as earnest as possible, which isn’t a stretch, because, honestly, he’s never been more sure about anything in his life.

“Oh fuck,” Tyler whispers, and before Jamie can do or say anything else, he gets up and flees the room.

***

Jamie wants to chase after Tyler, but he makes himself give it a minute. That’s a thing he’s going to have to work on: not being too overprotective, too possessive, if—

If they’re going to do this at all.

Jamie’s head is spinning. He just had the most mind-blowing sex of his life with the person he’s been dreaming about for months, and then that person told him…

It’s not even possible. It shouldn’t be possible. Jamie’s never met a wolf who didn’t know what they were. He remembers being a kid and wanting to shift all the time, getting stern talks from his parents about not doing it at school or on the streets. Did Tyler just…not?

It…would actually make sense of a couple of things. What Jordie said about Tyler’s scent, for one. Tyler not wanting to go on the moon run. His surprise at seeing the Kane-Toews kids shift.

Jamie’s going to have to reexamine everything. All the conversations he thought they were having, all the things he’s done he assumed Tyler understood—

Jamie sits up straight, sweat prickling cold on his back.

All the things he’s done. Jesus Christ. The things he’s done _tonight._

Tyler underneath him, panting and rolling his hips, while Jamie stuttered out a question. Tyler nodding his head, telling Jamie he could do anything. Not having any fucking clue that he was agreeing to—

Holy mother of fuck.

Jamie feels sick. His stomach is dropping, churning. It’s one thing if that was the two of them being a little hasty—jumping into things too fast, getting carried away, but the two of them doing it together. It’s another thing altogether if Tyler said everything and had no idea what everything meant. That’s what Jamie thought was going on. He was giddy and in awe of their daring and a little bit embarrassed that they hadn’t put more thought into it but so happy and it turns out Tyler didn’t even know what he was agreeing to. And Jamie _knotted him._

Jamie wants to throw up.

He has to—he has to deal with this first. He gets to his feet and pulls his pants on. There’s nothing he can do to undo this—but if Tyler wants to try—Jamie will do anything. Anything that might help. They can try to head off the bond, stay away from each other for the off-season, never touch if they can help it. Jamie can do that. He just has to hope it’s enough, and if it’s not, that Tyler will forgive him.

He’s halfway down the hall when he smells the acrid burst of fear.

He sprints the last few steps to the kitchen. “Tyler?” he calls, because it smells like Tyler—almost—not quite—and he skids to a stop in shock at the sight of a wolf.

It’s a surprise, and yet it’s not. Jamie knew Tyler was a wolf. But to see him like this, after Tyler was so adamant—to see Tyler’s wolf form at all—

He’s gorgeous. The idea that he might not be Jamie’s sinks teeth into his heart.

The next moment Tyler yips, fear and panic flooding his scent, and Jamie runs to his side and puts his arms around him.

He smells different like this. Of course he does: wolves always smell different in their wolf forms. The scent calls to Jamie as much as Tyler’s human one always has, burrows into Jamie’s belly and speaks of belonging. Jamie only gets a moment to smell it before the thick brown fur is disappearing and Tyler is human again in his arms, trembling and smelling of fear.

“I didn’t know,” he whispers into Jamie’s skin. “Jamie, I didn’t know, I never—I never knew, I…”

“I’m so sorry.” Jamie doesn’t know if he has the right to hold Tyler in his arms right now, but Tyler is clinging to him like he needs him and Jamie’s not about to abandon him in that. “Fuck, Tyler, I didn’t realize.”

Tyler just gets closer, basically climbing into Jamie’s lap. Jamie’s never seen him like this: shaking and so needy he doesn’t hold himself back from seeking comfort. He’s usually so guarded.

“I’m so sorry,” Jamie says again. Tyler’s face is pushed into Jamie’s neck, and it should be reassuring, but Jamie can’t help but feel unworthy of Tyler’s trust right now. “I had no idea. You must be so mad at me.”

Tyler jerks a little at that, raises his head and smells of fear. “No. What? Why—why would I be mad at you?”

He hasn’t even realized yet. That…that just makes it worse. “I knotted you,” Jamie says. “I knotted you, and you didn’t know what it meant.”

Tyler’s scent shifts a little, goes hotter. “I…wanted you to,” he murmurs. “It was, um. It was really good.”

It _was_ really good. But he still doesn’t get it. Jamie wishes he could just—not tell him, forget it ever happened. But they’ll both have to deal with the consequences. “No, but.” He chokes on how to say it. “You don’t get it. Knotting, it’s—it doesn’t always lead to a bond, but if there’s already groundwork—” And hell, is there ever groundwork between him and Tyler. “We might not be able to undo it. I’m so sorry,” he says quickly.

He feels it when Tyler tenses up further. It’s half agony and half relief, because at least Tyler understands now. Jamie should let him go now, but—

“Do, um.” Tyler bites at his bottom lip, and Jamie gets shamefully distracted by his teeth digging into the pink swell. “Do you want to undo it?”

“No!” Jamie says without even thinking about it. He doesn’t have to think. He would have bonded with Tyler in September if he’d had the option. That is really not the issue here. “I just thought, I mean, you didn’t know you were agreeing to it, and if you don’t want…”

“I do,” Tyler says, and the knot in Jamie’s chest dissolves into water. “Fuck, Jamie, I really, really do.”

Jamie can’t even speak for a moment for the rush of emotions he gets at that. Then: “Oh, thank God,” he says, and presses their foreheads together.

It’s such a grounding contact. He can feel Tyler’s breath on his face, breathe with him. He wants to hold onto Tyler forever. Never be farther than this from him.

He’s getting off so easy here. He’s getting—he’s getting _everything._

“I thought you were gonna bond with someone else,” Tyler whispers. “You kept saying, a wolf.”

He kept saying… “Oh my God,” Jamie says, letting out a half-laugh. Of all the things to come out of Jordie’s stupid comment. It never occurred to him—but how would it? “And you kept—I would say it, and you would just turn away. I thought you didn’t…”

“I did,” Tyler says. Even though Jamie’s guessed that by now, it’s still so good to hear. That Jamie wasn’t reading it wrong—that Tyler really did want him all those times it seemed they were on the verge of something. “It was all I wanted, Jamie, fuck.”

All Jamie wanted, too. All he wants. He presses his face to Tyler’s neck and breathes deep. So amazing, to be holding this person in his arms.

“You know I would have wanted you anyway,” Jamie says after a moment, muffled in the skin of Tyler’s neck. “Even if you weren’t a wolf.”

He feels like that should be obvious, like it barely needs to be said. But Tyler startles. “But—you said…”

“I was trying to tell you I wanted to date you,” Jamie says. Fuck, he’s been so stupid. He could have just—asked Tyler out. Ages ago. They could have been together this whole time.

“I wanted you from the first moment I saw you,” Jamie says, still speaking into Tyler’s neck. “That All-Star Game in 2012.”

It feels like too much to say. Like he’s revealing all his weakest and softest parts. But Tyler’s scent shifts towards pleased. “Really?” Tyler asks.

“Yeah. It was dumb, because I didn’t really know you,” Jamie says. “But I saw you, and you said hi to me, and smiled at me, and I thought, _yes._ ”

“I. Wow.” Tyler’s heart beat is picking up a little, his skin going pink.

It gives Jamie the courage to go on. “I’d dated, I guess, some before that,” he says. “And when I got back from the game, Jordie wanted me to keep doing it, but it kind of felt like—like I was going through the motions, I guess. Like I was just biding my time until I ended up with you.”

That probably is too much to say. “I guess that sounds pretty dumb,” Jamie murmurs.

“No,” Tyler says, like Jamie hoped he would, because he is Jamie’s and he is perfect. “The, uh, the guys I picked up all had a lot in common with each other, after that weekend.”

Jamie’s stomach swoops, and he feels a smile growing on his face where it’s pressed to Tyler’s neck. “Yeah?”

“Mm-hm.” Tyler lifts his head, pulls back far enough to look at Jamie, and then Jamie has to kiss the breath out of him.

Kissing Tyler is never going to get old. He tastes like he smells, and Jamie’s wanted that smell under his mouth and hands and cock for way too long now. Wanted the person who went with it, too, his giggles and his dumb jokes and his brilliant hockey and the sweetness of him curled into Jamie’s side. He’s pretty sure he wants him forever.

“You know,” Jamie says, when they finally break the kiss, panting, “they say our chances of bonding double if we knot twice in the same night.”

It still feels too daring to say. But Tyler just smirks and rolls his hips. “Do they really?” he asks, cock a hard line against Jamie’s thigh, and Jamie wraps him in his arms and pulls them up, not letting Tyler’s feet touch the ground.


	8. Chapter 8

It’s different, kissing Tyler now. Jamie feels like he should have known—did know, a little bit, that Tyler was sad and uncertain for a few minutes there, but the whole first time, really. Tyler was into it and he was present but he wasn’t _happy._ This Tyler giggles into their kiss and tries things. He still melts into Jamie’s embrace, but he also runs his hands down Jamie’s back to squeeze his ass and tries biting his ear. There’s…more of him this time, maybe. Or just a different side.

Jamie loves all the sides.

Tyler still whines, still bucks his hips against Jamie’s and tries to get him going faster. Jamie likes the push-pull of it: Tyler’s quickness against his slow steadiness. Tyler lying on his back and begging and Jamie finally acquiescing and sliding in.

Tyler’s less giggly, when Jamie’s inside of him. His cries turn high-pitched, and his breath sounds like sobbing. Jamie looks into his eyes and thinks that, in a way, it’s the first time for Tyler: the first time when he knows Jamie’s all-in. When he might have some sliver of an idea of how much Jamie loves him.

Jamie intends to show him exactly how much, in great detail and over time.

After, when Jamie’s rolled onto his back and tucked Tyler against his chest so that they can be knotted in comfort, he feels an extra awareness of Tyler’s skin. Like his own skin now stretches over both of their bodies. He doesn’t know if the bond has taken yet—probably won’t know for a few days—but he feels a little like it has. Inseparable.

He’s so hungry for Tyler’s skin against his. He has been all year, really. He wonders if Tyler’s felt the same thing, and how he justified it to himself—if he thought everyone needed touch that much, that it wasn’t a wolf thing at all.

Tyler sighs and nuzzles into his neck. It’s such a wolf-like thing to do. Jamie should maybe let it go, but instead he says, “You really never had any idea?”

Tyler shifts a little, but he doesn’t tense up. “I guess…I guess I don’t know how I would have known,” he says. “No one ever, like, mentioned it to me.”

No one ever had to mention it to Jamie. He just knew, the way he knew some people were girls and others were boys and that humans were different from cats and dogs. “Not even your parents?”

Tyler’s hair tickles Jamie’s neck as he shakes his head. “I don’t think my mom knows anything about wolves. And my dad left when I was really little, so.”

Jamie feels a surge of anger that he recognizes as the new protectiveness that comes from his knot in Tyler’s ass and his sweat all over Tyler’s skin. He tamps it down, just lets himself slide his fingers through Tyler’s hair. “He shouldn’t have left you to deal with this alone.”

Tyler hums a little and pushes into the touch. Jamie tugs on his hair and relishes the pleased smell he gets in return. It doesn’t make up for Tyler being alone with no wolves to guide him, but Jamie hopes he’ll have years to do that.

“The thing I don’t get is, like.” Jamie puts his other hand on Tyler’s ass and feels him shiver as he brushes the edge of his hole, where it’s still stretched around Jamie’s cock. “You get so wet. None of your sex partners ever said anything to you?”

There’s a pause, and Tyler goes still—not alarm or fear or stress or any of the things Jamie’s on the alert for; just surprise. “I just always thought gay guys were weird for wanting to use lube,” he says, and maybe Jamie shouldn’t, maybe he should treat this seriously, but he can’t help it when he starts to laugh.

“You thought—oh my God, Tyler.” He can’t stop giggling, and he probably looks super dumb. “That’s, like, the most omega thing in the world.”

“Shut up.” Tyler hits him on the shoulder, but he doesn’t sound mad about it. Jamie opens his eyes and sees Tyler looking down at him, embarrassed but mostly just grinning. “How did you know about yourself, anyway?”

“Well, my parents are wolves, and they would have told me,” Jamie says. “But also I first shifted when I was six months old.”

“Oh fuck.”

Tyler looks so shocked. He shouldn’t be—it’s not like it’s abnormal—but then, Tyler probably doesn’t know what’s normal. “It varies a lot,” Jamie says. He gets a weird sense as he’s saying it: sort of reverse deja vu, like he’s just realizing now that he’s going to be telling Tyler this sort of thing a lot in the near future. It sets up a pleased warmth in his chest. “Some wolves don’t do it until they’re way older. But I’ve never heard of anyone just not doing it.”

“I think I…did, maybe.” Tyler brow creases. “Once when I was really little. I was, like, lost in the woods, and I thought I was making it up, and…it was kind of scary. That night.”

The way he says it, Jamie has a feeling he’s underplaying things. He has the fierce desire to go back into Tyler’s past and _fix everything._ He settles for kissing Tyler’s forehead. “I wish you hadn’t had to feel like that,” he says, and Tyler makes a little noise and kisses his mouth and it almost, almost makes up for the fact that Jamie can’t change his past.

“Shit,” Tyler says suddenly, when they’ve been kissing for a few minutes. Jamie’s worried something’s really wrong, but Tyler doesn’t smell alarmed. “That’s why you were so freaked out about the smell thing.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Fuck, there are so many things that make more sense in retrospect. Of course Tyler wouldn’t be able to tell who else was a wolf. Wouldn’t be able to guess he was part of that community. “I’ve never heard of a wolf whose sense of smell was injured before. That’s usually, like, how we recognize each other.”

“I guess you’ll just have to help me out there,” Tyler says, going for a joke, maybe, but his smile is too real for that.

But—“Not just me,” Jamie says. “Our whole pack.”

He’s looking into Tyler’s eyes as he says it, and he can see when they go excited. “Yeah? Really? You’re gonna have an official pack?”

“I think it’s time,” Jamie says. He hasn’t really thought about it until now—has had it in the back of his mind for ages, but there have always been more important things. But now, with Tyler in his arms and the possibility of forever in the air, he doesn’t even need to think before he says it. It’s time for their pack.

***

There isn’t a question of Jamie going back to his apartment to sleep. He and Tyler decide by the unspoken accord of their arms tight around each other that they aren’t getting out of bed for anything. It’s probably gross that they don’t shower after all the sex they had, but Jamie’s secretly pleased about it. The room smells like them. _Tyler_ smells like them, like sweat and come and happiness.

Jamie sleeps with his nose in Tyler’s hair and breathes him in all night.

When Jamie wakes up in the morning, it’s because Tyler’s shifting against him. Tyler’s leg brushes against Jamie’s morning-hard cock and a shiver goes up Jamie’s back and he thinks, _This is real. He’s here._

“Good morning,” he rumbles, and he opens his eyes to see Tyler smirking down at him.

“Feels like a very good morning,” Tyler says, brushing his leg against Jamie’s cock again.

“Mm,” Jamie says, grinning up at him. This is the side of Tyler he thought about most often, when he pictured them together—well, maybe not _most_ often. Most often had been Tyler’s mouth dropping open in ecstasy as Jamie pounded into him. But this was a close second: Tyler laughing, fun, smirking and teasing and being _happy._

“Now, I wonder if there’s anything else we could do to make the morning better?” Tyler asks, mock-thoughtful, and sits back a little to rolls his ass back against Jamie’s cock.

Jamie can’t help his gasp—doesn’t even want to, when it makes Tyler’s smile grow like that. The scent of Tyler’s slick fills the air, overlaying the older smells of their sex from last night. Jamie feels his cock filling with blood.

“What do they say,” Tyler says, bending low and speaking lower, a twinkle in his eye, “about our chances of bonding if we knot again the morning after?”

“I think—good,” Jamie says, fumbling in the nightstand for a condom. “I think they say they’re good.”

There’s something young and astonished-looking in Tyler’s face as he sinks onto Jamie’s cock. Like he hadn’t quite realized he could do this for himself. Jamie catalogs every little hiss and twitch of pleasure as Tyler slides himself up and down and feels like his chest is going to burst.

It all gets slippy and slidey and hazy pretty fast, Tyler’s ass squeezing around Jamie’s cock and his own cock dripping on Jamie’s stomach and the scent driving Jamie wild. Last night Tyler came without his cock being touched, but Jamie’s can’t just lie here while Tyler looks like that, so he wraps his hand around Tyler’s blood-hot cock and pulls. Tyler’s eyes flutter shut and his pink lips part and he starts moving faster on Jamie’s cock. He’s complete, unutterably gorgeous, and Jamie feels his knot start to swell.

“Gonna,” Jamie gasps, and Tyler stops lifting up and just grinds down, circling his hips and making Jamie buck up. “Gonna—yeah—”

He jerks Tyler hard as his knot swells to its full size, and they start to come at the same time—heaving, gasping, blinding orgasms that Jamie used to think of as the exception but which might be the rule, now that he has Tyler.

Tyler settles into his arms after, firmly knotted. This could be a problem if it doesn’t go down soon enough for them to go to skate, but Jamie refuses to worry about it. It feels so good to lounge like this, floating on the backwash of pleasure coursing through both of their bodies.

“That felt different,” Tyler murmurs. “With your hand on my cock.”

“Different, better?” Jamie asks, and Tyler hms.

“Not sure.” He rubs his cheek on Jamie’s shoulder. “We should probably test out both of them some more. A lot.”

“I don’t know, sounds like a lot of work,” Jamie says, and Tyler giggles.

They end up getting to skate on time, but only because Jamie puts his foot down about showering together. They make it into the locker room, and it takes approximately three seconds for Jordie to whip his head around and stare at them.

Jamie feels his cheeks heat. He’s not stupid—he knew Jordie would be able to tell. Even if he couldn’t smell the sex on them, he could probably smell the waves of happiness, and there’s also the thing where Jamie didn’t come home last night.

So Jamie was expecting the look. What he wasn’t expecting was how much he’d like it. How eyes on him and Tyler would make him want to preen, to tug Tyler towards him and rub his face all over Tyler’s neck.

“So I think perhaps we’ve been caught,” Tyler says in Jamie’s ear, and Jamie’s stomach flutters idiotically at the reminder that there’s a “we” to be caught.

“Yeah.” Tyler’s breath on his ear makes him want to reach out so badly—but so far Jordie’s the only one on the team who knows, and maybe they should keep it that way for a while. He settles for brushing against Tyler as he goes to his stall.

It doesn’t take Jordie long to sidle close. “Dude,” he says, and Jamie can’t quite fight the grin that tugs at his mouth.

“Yeah?” he asks.

“What even—”

“I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to be getting ready for the ice right now,” Jamie says loudly. “We wouldn’t want to be late.”

Jordie groans. Jamie laughs, happiness buoying him up, and Tyler looks across the room at the sound, giving Jamie a smile that lodges under his sternum and stays there.

Jordie keeps shooting glances at both of them on the ice. It’s a good practice, Tyler and Jamie connecting effortlessly in a way they haven’t since before the Olympics. Better than before, maybe. Jamie feels like there’s a beacon under his skin pointing straight toward Tyler, and it’s hard to keep from smiling enough to be noticeable to the others.

“Save some for the rest of us!” Demers calls out when Jamie and Tyler have just connected on a beauty of a pass sequence, and Jamie laughs with everyone else.

They’re barely off the ice when Jordie yanks him into a side hallway. “Okay,” Jordie says. “You have got to tell me what’s going on.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jamie says, though the smile that’s stretching across his face probably gives him away.

Jordie rolls his eyes. His exasperated face is kind of amazing. “Come _on._ You and Tyler, obviously.”

“Me and Tyler?” Jamie asks. It’s actually hard to talk while smiling this widely. “What do you mean?”

Jordie shoves his shoulder. “I haven’t seen you this happy since Mom and Dad got you your first pair of hockey skates so shut up and _tell me about it._ ”

Jamie laughs. It feels good to laugh this much. “I mean, if you want details…”

“Urgh, no,” Jordie says. “But, you and he…”

“Yeah,” Jamie says, finally, and he feels his smile shade into something less playful, sees the answering light in Jordie’s face. “Yeah, we are.”

“That is—holy fuck, Chubbs, it’s about time.”

“Yeah,” Jamie says, more a gasp than anything else, and Jordie jumps on him. Jamie pulls him into a full-body hug and clings tight.

“Thank God,” Jordie says. “I didn’t think…” He pulls back and shakes his head. “What the fuck was going on, then? Why did it take so long?”

“Well.” Jamie’s smile fades a bit. “So, it turns out—um, yeah. It turns out he didn’t know he was a wolf.”

Jordie’s eyebrows go up. Slowly. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah, he…” Jamie drags his hand over his face. “I guess his dad left them, and he didn’t know any wolves growing up, and you know about the smell thing, so he just…never put it together.”

There’s a pause, and then Jordie cracks up. “Holy shit,” he says. “Holy shit. Only you guys, Jamie. Oh my God.”

“Shut up,” Jamie says. “It’s not that bad.”

“Not that—oh my God.” It’s hard to understand him for how hard he’s laughing. “That is the most ridiculous…”

“Shut up,” Jamie says again, though it’s weak. He’s not about to argue that this _isn’t_ ridiculous. “It’s not like…”

“Oh hey, guys.” Tyler pokes his head around the corner, and maybe this isn’t the best time for him to interrupt, but he’s grinning, and Jamie’s face breaks into a smile at the sight of him. “We having a fun conversation?”

His hair is dripping from the shower, and he looks gorgeous, and Jamie wants to touch him. He automatically curbs the impulse, then realizes he doesn’t have to anymore. He goes over and slides an arm around Tyler’s waist. “You could say that,” he says, nuzzling at Tyler’s cheek a little until Tyler turns his grin towards Jamie and their lips meet.

“Holy fuck,” Jordie says again, gasping through his laughter. “Tyler…”

“Did you break him?” Tyler asks Jamie.

“He’ll be okay,” Jamie says. “You wanna get out of here?”

Tyler beams at him, and Jamie keeps an arm around him as they walk away. If anyone has a problem with that, they can go fuck themselves.

***

It would be easy to avoid Jordie, but Jamie doesn’t actually want to do that. Jordie’s going to be a part of their—whatever they build together. Jordie’s going to be a part of that.

They’re on the couch when Jordie gets back to his and Jamie’s apartment. Tyler’s sideways on Jamie’s lap, Jamie’s hands on his arm and his hip, because the hour or two of morning skate was definitely too long to go without touching.

Jordie still looks dangerously close to laughter when he walks in. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Explain this to me again. You didn’t know you were a wolf?”

Tyler leans back against Jamie, sighing in contentment. “You heard us.”

He seems so calm about it. Jamie’s not sure he would be adjusting so well, in his position. He wants to know what Tyler thinks about it—wants to hear everything Tyler’s thinking. Wants to climb inside his mind like he can inside his body. He presses his nose against Tyler’s skin.

Jordie’s still talking. “Yeah, but I’m still missing the part where it actually makes sense,” he says. “You actually thought you were a human?”

“I mean, it sounds dumb now,” Tyler says, and his scent shifts a little bit towards embarrassment. Jamie shoots a glare at Jordie for making Tyler smell like that and bites Tyler on the neck to reassure him.

“Ew,” Jordie says, holding up his hands. “I don’t need to see that kind of thing.”

Jamie grins against Tyler’s skin. “But he tastes so good,” he says, faux-innocent, and Tyler giggles.

“Can we go back to the thing where Tyler thought he was a human?” Jordie asks. “Because I’m still not over that. Oh, and the thing where he didn’t notice that you were insanely in love with him, somehow, even though everyone in a ten-mile radius could pick up on it.”

Jamie flushes. He doesn’t think he was _that_ obvious. Though, okay, maybe.

Tyler nuzzles the side of his head. “It’s okay,” he says softly. “I know now,” and those words in Jamie’s ear are so wonderful that it’s hard to care about anything else. Fuck’s sake, he’s holding Tyler in his lap. Tyler’s mouth is right in front of him and Jamie can taste it, lick inside and smell Tyler’s scent getting warmer.

Hm, maybe Jamie had the wrong idea in wanting to be around Jordie right now.

“Um, we do have other chairs,” Jordie says. “Other couch space, even. No need to double up for my sake.”

Jamie tightens his hands on Tyler’s hip. As if he’s going to put any distance between himself and Tyler. “Definitely not for your sake,” he murmurs.

“Uh-uh,” Tyler says, opening for Jamie’s tongue again. Jamie’s only too happy to give it to him. The taste of him, Jesus Christ, how did Jamie survive so long without this?

“Babies!” Jordie says, so loudly that Jamie jumps and breaks the kiss. “Yeah, that’s right,” he says with a grin. “Haven’t had that talk yet, have you? Thought that might ruin the mood.”

It might. Jamie goes tense. Oh, fuck, it might—

“So, I really, really like kids,” Tyler says to Jamie, and Jamie huffs a laugh.

“Me, too,” he says. “Let’s have a bunch, okay?”

“Sounds good to me,” Tyler says, and he’s obviously joking, but—Jamie’s stomach flips a little as Tyler’s lips brush his neck. “You wanna start now?”

“Mm, okay,” Jamie says, and he grins when he hears Jordie groan.

“That’s it, I’m going for a walk,” Jordie says. Jamie would laugh except that Tyler is kissing him again.

Tyler’s mouth. Jamie could honestly do this forever.

Jamie’s breath is just starting to come short when Tyler’s phone buzzes. He doesn’t really want to stop, strains after Tyler’s lips a little, but then Tyler looks at it and laughs and flips the phone around so Jamie can see.

It’s a text from Kaner: _u thought what?????_

“Oh, yeah,” Jamie says with a wince. This…could go badly. “There’s a group chat I should probably introduce you to.”

“Yeah?” Tyler presses another kiss to his lips. “Will I like this group chat?”

“Well, it’s all the NHL wolves, so,” Jamie says. “They’re basically hooligans with data plans.”

Tyler giggles and presses his mouth back to Jamie’s. “Hooligans, really?” he says. “Well, as long as they stay off our lawn.”

“They’d better,” Jamie says, but he’s gasping now, and he gets his hands inside Tyler’s pants and jerks him off, four fingers shoved in his ass until he shakes and shoots all over Jamie’s shirt.

Jordie probably wasn’t going to come back for a while, anyway.

***

They go onto the ice that night and fucking light it up, 5-1 in the first two periods with one goal from Jamie and two from Tyler. They assist on each other’s goals; of course they do—it’s so easy to find Tyler on the ice tonight he might as well be outlined in neon. They go into the third period with a four-goal lead, so they don’t really need to worry about scoring, but Tyler’s open and Jamie slots a pass to him and Tyler shoots—so pretty that Jamie knows, from the second the puck leaves the stick, that it’s going in. The next moment he’s crashing into Tyler, whooping and getting his arms around him and Tyler—

Tyler pulls off their helmets and kisses him, right on the mouth.

Jamie’s frozen for a moment. The music is still playing, so he can’t hear any change in the crowd’s noise, but he can practically feel the shift in the arena. The shock.

Then Jamie pushes closer and gives Tyler a full-on kiss, because fuck it, if Tyler wants to do it this way, then Jamie’s all in.

They break apart after a moment, and Jamie stares at Tyler’s flushed face and bright eyes. “I hope—is that okay?” Tyler says over the noise. “I just wanted to—”

“Yeah,” Jamie says. He can feel the stupid grin on his face. It’s going to be a clusterfuck; he has no idea what management is going to say or what the public response will be. But…Tyler just kissed him in front of thousands of people.

Honestly, he can’t imagine anything better.


End file.
